Please be very careful with the web addresses in this post. Sharing this post is the best thing to do, but if you tell someone about these addresses vocally, or re-type them in an email or text, be very careful to get them exactly correct.
A settlement has been announced for the 2017 Equifax Breach that affected a huge portion of adults in the US.
The website below is real and is the proper place to file a claim for identity theft protection or claim a $125 cash payment.
There most likely will be bad websites that pop up that will try to trick people into giving away their personal information now that this settlement is public, so everyone should stay vigilant and only use this one website for this breach settlement.
The first step is to scroll down and find out if your information was impacted. That check asks for your full name and the last 6 digits of your SSN. If that check confirms that you were impacted, then you can file a claim.
https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/
Many credit card companies offer identity theft help, so it’s worth checking into that now so you know what your options are if you ever need them.
An easy way to keep tabs on your credit file & score continually is Credit Karma. https://www.creditkarma.com/
They have an app you can install on your phone and you’ll have quick and easy access to your credit file at any time. They also alert you if anything new shows up on your credit file. I use them personally, and their alerts have happened within 24 hours of me opening a new account.
Of course, there is always https://www.freecreditreport.com/ as well. They also have an app now, although I have not used this one so I can’t attest to its features or cost, but it also appears to be free.
If you only want to pull a report once a year versus keeping an eye on things continually, there is also https://www.annualcreditreport.com where you can request free reports once per year.
Checking on your credit file multiple ways is a good thing to do at least once in a while because different places organize the information a bit differently and different perspectives on the same data can sometimes help uncover mysteries.
