Comment by projektfu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by projektfu | Hacker News Reader

Equifax cannot afford to pay $125 to each member of the potential class. It's way above their revenue, let alone profit. So they would go bankrupt and whatever cash is on hand would be divvied up. The credit information would presumably be sold to the highest bidder.

How about the FTC instead agrees that identities cannot be stolen and puts companies on the hook for the money they lose by not verifying identity. You have an account with a bank and they give the money to a fraudster? Well, then they have to credit your account and go looking for the money. Someone opens a loan in your name? The company has to pay you for the time spent removing their garbage from the credit report and they have to go get the money back from the fraudster. Why not just remove the bite from identity theft?

Their ability to pay would be limited by their assets, not revenue or profit. If they've been making profit for years, they might easily have enough cash. Also, their future profits can be borrowed against to pay for a one-time expense like this.

I have no idea whether they have the cash or not, I'm just pointing out that looking at their current revenue and income is not enough. :)

> Equifax cannot afford to pay $125 to each member of the potential class.

That’s not the victims’ problem. Even if Equifax has to be completely liquidated to cover the compensation, the government should fight to make an example of such a terrible company and give the victims some sense of justice. Hopefully the board and the executives would rethink their lives and careers, maybe even change.

It becomes the victims' problem when Equifax declares bankruptcy and escapes paying.

The upside is their competitors sees what happens to that guy and never make the same mistake.

A company the size of Equifax going bust due to negligence would show Experian, Lexis-Nexis, and Transunion that these records aren't assets but large liabilities to be handled with extreme diligence.

> How about the FTC instead agrees that identities cannot be stolen

Well, sure, if identities cannot be stolen, the whole problem is solved.

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