If you are wondering how to sue Equifax, you have come to the right place. Equifax’s data breach incident has most of its clients thinking about a lawsuit against the company. There are many options available to you in case you are planning to sue Equifax – such as representing yourself in a small claims court, hiring a lawyer to represent your case, or joining a class-action lawsuit like thousands of other clients out there. In fact, there are numerous ways that you can take your frustration about the data breach incident to courts. This article provides information on how to sue Equifax.

If you plan to sue the company personally, the small claims court is your best bet. Filling out the legal paperwork can be quite daunting to a client who isn’t a lawyer or who don’t plan to hire one. On the other hand, if you don’t have a tangible injury to show after the data breach incident of the company, hiring your individual lawyer won’t be worth your time and money in the long run. A class-action lawsuit is designed for cases just like yours. In fact, a class-action will allow attorneys to sue the company on behalf of a class of thousands or millions of plaintiffs. A class-action lawsuit is specifically designed for cases like this – such as when a company’s actions have harmed a large group of people in such a way that could be minor for the individual client but serious collectively. For example, as soon as the data breach incident of Equifax was revealed, attorneys began filing class-action lawsuits against the company. In fact, there are more than 50-odd cases pending today. That is why you should take advantage of class-action lawsuits if you are wondering how to sue Equifax.

Equifax’s liability can be enormous as per the legal experts in the country. In fact, the damage for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act is fixed at $1,000 per violation. When the amount is multiplied by the number of victims affected by the data breach incident of the company, it may literally put the company out of business. But past settlements for similar corporate data breach cases show that the amounts settled were far less than the stipulated amount. For example, the Target – retail giant – agreed to pay their clients $18.5-million after hackers stole information from more than 40 million credit and debit cards of company clients. The settlement is around 50 cents per stolen card. That is why it is important that you initiate a class-action lawsuit in case no tangible harm occurred to you due to the data breach incident of the company. When class-action lawsuits are settled by the company, plaintiff lawyers will reach out to the consumers in the group through mass mailing in most cases. That way you can claim your share of the proceeds. On the other hand, Equifax is able to identify the victims of the data breach incident directly from its records. You may even get a check in your mail from the company. One important thing to remember is that if a class-action lawsuit does lead to a payout, accepting such money may close off your rights to file an individual lawsuit in case you discover more serious harm later on.

Individual lawsuits against the company would be quite costly for most clients. Unless your identity was actually stolen as a result of the data breach – and you can prove that the theft hurt you financially – an individual lawsuit can be quite costly. Even in such cases, these lawsuits might be difficult to win at times. In fact, you need to prove that thieves have stolen your identity from Equifax and didn’t obtain the information any other way. On the other hand, Equifax may try to force the case into arbitration – which is another way of settling consumer disputes. That is why you shouldn’t go for an individual lawsuit against the company unless you are sure of winning the case. If not, you may end up wasting both your time and money in the long run.

The aforementioned article provides information on how you should sue Equifax for data breach.