How should you take your Equifax data breach policy?

Are you going for free money or free service? And what do the fine print say?

On July 22, the Federal Trade Commission confirmed that Equifax would pay up to $ 700 million – and not less than $ 575 million – for the data breach related to the 2017 data of approximately 147 million people. And in the days that followed, a question arose: how do you get your own piece of this action?

It's pretty simple on the face of things. You can get up to 10 years of free credit monitoring or, if you already have credit monitoring (which can be obtained for free through a service such as Credit Karma), you can get $ 125.

Most of us would probably prefer to earn free money, but it is the details that explain it all.

With respect to credit monitoring, your freebie consists of at least four years of monitoring by three Equifax, Experian and TransUnion offices, $ 1,000,000 of identity theft insurance and six additional years of free credit monitoring of Equifax only. If you were a minor in May 2017, at the time of the violation, you are entitled to 18 years of free supervision.

Free money becomes even more complicated. Although the settlement reserves $ 425 million to pay for anything that affects those affected by the violation, the lion's share of this amount covers all monitoring of free credit. Only $ 31 million is available to cover cash payments. So, even if you can receive up to $ 125, this amount decreases as more people subscribe for money.

If each of the 147 million people affected by the data breach opted for a cash payment, each person would receive $ 0.21 each. If only one million people go for money, you get $ 31 each.

Now here are means to obtain a larger payment, but they only apply if you have been directly affected by the data breach in one way or another. You can be reimbursed for various expenses and even be compensated for the time you have spent dealing with all these hbadles. This will not apply to everyone, so you should read the FTC guidelines for settlement if you think you are eligible.

For all others, your first step is to determine if you are one of the 147 million people involved in the data breach. You can do that here. If you are not eligible to participate in the settlement, it is still good news. This means that your personal information, including your social security number, has not been revealed.

If you are Eligible, your next stop is the Equifax website set up for people wishing to file a claim. Even if you do not care about money or free monitoring, you should go through this process. If you accept one of the settlement options, you waive your right to pursue Equifax further (for example, if your identity is stolen). But you also waive this right if you do not follow the claims process until January 20, 2020.

So do the thing. Most people involved will probably want to opt for one of two settlement benefits. But which one do you choose? Free money is the easy and obvious choice. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as much tweeted Friday, before the end points of the cash settlement were fully understood. She later corrected itself.

In the end, you are the only one who can decide which option is best for you. I can tell you that personally, once I had a better understanding of how cash payments could work, I opted for monitoring free credit. The free money is attractive, but even though the $ 125 was a guaranteed payment, this data breach was still occurring and my SSN is still available. I would prefer to have 10 years of protection against identity theft more robust.

Regardless of your choice, settlement payments will not begin to be distributed until the end of the claims process in January 2020. Those who opt for free credit monitoring will receive an activation code. And those who opt for cash can choose between a check and a Visa Gift Card.