Think You’re Getting $125 From Equifax? Think Again!

Everyone is currently giddy like a schoolgirl thinking they're about to get a free $125, but your smile is quickly going to be changed to a frown and have you begging for a quart of double dutch chocolate ice cream to eat your emotions away.

So because of their lax security, 147 million Americans had their private information hacked into. The FTC and Equifax came to the agreement that the company would have to outright pay people for their negligence or offer them free credit monitoring if their information was compromised.

Huge media outlets like NBC and the NY Post have reported that the amount of people that are asking for their $125 is way more than they predicted, and that the FTC is warning people that they will not get that specific amount sent to them.

How was this a surprise? If you knew 147 million Americans were affected and your deal was to give them the option of choosing to get paid $125 or to get some free credit monitoring that's already available for free in plenty of other places, then you would guess someone in the room would've had a calculator on them!

Here's where it gets interesting. Equifax was order to pay $300 million in damages and pay those affected by the hack up to $125.

Let's do some simple math here: 147 million people were hacked and Equifax has to potentially pay all of them $125.

• 147,000,000 x $125 = ~18.4 billion dollars

Which means:

•  $300,000,000 / 147,000,000 = $2.04 a person

So it looks like, if you took their offer of free credit monitoring, you got the better end of the deal. So, hooray? I guess?

For more in-depth details on this circus, check out this article from Think Progess.