Seriously. I was especially struck by this, which sounds like it is written by Equifax PR people, but it comes from the FTC:
> The free credit monitoring provides a much better value, and everyone whose information was exposed can take advantage of it. If your information was exposed in the data breach, and you file a valid claim before the deadline, you are guaranteed at least four years of free monitoring at all three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) and $1,000,000 of identity theft insurance, among other benefits. The market value of this product is hundreds of dollars per year.
The "market value" they quote is the price tag that Experian would like you to pay, but the actual marginal market price that Equifax pays Experian is $16/claimant.
$16 is still a lot more than we're each going to get from the $31 million. Millions of people have signed up, which means we might get a buck or two each if we're lucky.
So arguably, if you really want to stick it to Equifax, the monitoring service might be a better way to do so.
> The free credit monitoring provides a much better value, and everyone whose information was exposed can take advantage of it. If your information was exposed in the data breach, and you file a valid claim before the deadline, you are guaranteed at least four years of free monitoring at all three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) and $1,000,000 of identity theft insurance, among other benefits. The market value of this product is hundreds of dollars per year.
The "market value" they quote is the price tag that Experian would like you to pay, but the actual marginal market price that Equifax pays Experian is $16/claimant.