HOBOKEN, N.J.–As the one-year anniversary of the massive Equifax data breach approaches, a new survey has found many Americans have not paid it much attention (unless there is an opportunity to join a lawsuit).
The news comes at the same time Atlanta-based Equifax has asked a court to toss claims made by credit unions and banks that are seeking damages for alleged losses related to the breach, as CUToday.info reported here.
The Findings
A survey of 1,000 Americans by LendEDU has found:
- 72.9% of respondents were aware of the Equifax breach. Of those people, 37.04% have not checked if they were affected by the breach. In the same survey conducted by LendEDU in 2017, 44.89% had not checked at that point if they were impacted by the breach.
- Of those who had checked if the Equifax breach hit them, 35.49% said it did. Of that group, 35.49%, more than 80%, said they would be interested in joining a class-action lawsuit against Equifax.
- Overall, Americans seem to be more forgiving of Equifax a year later. The 2018 survey found 46.23% of applicable respondents thought Equifax should lose its ability to act as a credit bureau, while 2017's survey found that 54.16% held the same opinion.
Complaints Increase
In addition, LendEDU reported that after scraping the CFPB's Consumer Complaint Database it found Equifax's year-over-year complaints more than doubled following the breach. From July 11, 2016 to July 11, 2017 (before breach was public knowledge), there were 18,007 complaints filed against Equifax. From July 12, 2017 to July 12, 2018 (when the data was collected), there were 36,045 complaints against Equifax.
The full report can be found here.