September 15, 2017
If you’re an Equifax victim, don’t expect more than a few bucks in compensation
by BRETT ARENDS
Marketwatch.com
Do you think you are going to sue Equifax if its data breach leaves you the victim of identity theft or fraud?
Good luck with that.
Equifax doesn’t have the money to compensate you, or anything like it. If it were left to private-sector corporations to resolve this crisis, we’d be up the creek without a paddle.
The credit-rating company has said as many as 143 million people may have had their personal and financial details, including Social Security numbers, stolen as a result of a massive hackers’ attack on its systems earlier this summer.
While Equifax doesn’t have a lot of money for potential victims, CEO Rick Smith would walk away with at least $30 million if he is fired.
Equifax’s market value, which has collapsed by a third in a few weeks as a result of the scandal, is down to $11.6 billion. That works out to only $81 for each of the 143 million potential victims.
Mmmm. That’ll go a long way. Take off lawyers’ fees and other costs, and … well, if someone steals your identity and ruins your life, Equifax can buy you dinner.
MarketWatch’s Maria LaMagna details just how bad the effects of identity theft can be. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/equifax-breach-why-you-should-freeze-your-credit-report-today-2017-09-14
And that $11.6 billion figure isn’t even real. It’s just the current trading value on Wall Street of the company’s stock. The market value will head to zero overnight if the worst comes to the worst.
According to the company’s most recent financials, Equifax basically has nothing solid with which to compensate you and no way of getting anything. As of June 30, it had already had a negative balance of minus $3 billion — meaning it had $1 billion in cash and equivalents, but owed $4 billion in short- and long-term liabilities. There’s no money there for you.
And pretax income over the past 12 months was $811 million, according to FactSet.
That’s a big, fat $5.67 per potential victim per year.
Did I say they could buy you dinner? They can buy you a cup of coffee.
Bloomberg has reported Equifax may have as much as $150 million in insurance as well. A dollar for each of us.
So throw in a pack of gum.
It’s hard to see Chairman and CEO Richard “Rick” Smith surviving this scandal.
“What does it take to get fired in this country?” asked TV’s Jim Cramer on CNBC on Thursday. “He should be fired, the board should just fire him.” Cramer, my former boss at TheStreet, has his critics, but he speaks for a lot of traders on Wall Street and is probably reflecting widespread opinion.
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the upper chamber, also suggested Smith should go, and compared the scandal to Enron.
While Equifax doesn’t have a lot of money for potential victims, the accounts show that Smith would walk away with at least $30 million if he is fired. That includes an $18.2 million accrued pension benefit, and possibly another $5 million in severance. But it also includes $13.2 million in the form of bonus stock that has recently vested. He got the bonus for doing such a great job. His compensation for the past three years has averaged $14 million a year.
The company on Wednesday revealed that the data breach was the result of a software vulnerability that experts say should have been patched months earlier.
It’s at times like this, as usual, that all those people who like to attack “big government” and praise the unregulated “free market” suddenly go into hiding. Would we better off if the Federal Trade Commission and Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau butted out of this crisis? Should we just leave it up to the board?
I never even asked these credit-rating clowns to start keeping their Stasi-like secret files on me. Nor did you. Equifax, TransUnion and Experian have gotten enormous power with almost no accountability whatsoever. The only way to avoid them is to avoid having any debt. No mortgage. No car payments. No credit card.
Without credit cards, these days it’s almost impossible even to rent a car or book a hotel room. As a result, we are effectively forced into the arms of this protection racket.
Now as a the result of corporate ineptitude, we may end up having to pay every month for a service to monitor our credit files for breaches, because they don’t have the money to cover the liabilities.
You couldn’t make it up.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/if-youre-an-equifax-victim-dont-expect-more-than-a-few-bucks-in-compensation-2017-09-15
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