SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- Class-action lawsuits have been filed all over the country over the Equifax data breach, affecting approximately 143 million consumers.
RELATED: Massive Data Breach At Equifax Leaves 143M At Risk
At least two lawsuits have been filed in San Diego.
Timothy Blood of Blood Hurst & O’Reardon represents a San Diego man who believes his information was stolen.
“It really ends up affecting probably most households in the United States,” Blood said. “Equifax has been very aggressive, in my opinion, not dealing with this very well.”
Blood believes the offer of one-year credit monitoring is not enough.
“With something like a social security number, you have that for the rest of your life, so you will need protection for the rest of your life,” Blood said.
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Another complaint, filed late Friday, claims that the consumer credit reporting agency Equifax has "irreparably harmed hundreds of millions of American consumers by failing to adequately protect their credit and highly sensitive personal information."
"(Plaintiffs) Ehud (Gersten) and Hannah (Obradovich) and all other consumers in this class trusted Equifax with this information, and the company should have taken adequate measures to keep this information private and confidential," said Danielle Fuschetti, one of the attorneys who filed the class-action suit.
Equifax could not immediately be reached for comment.
The complaint filed by Fuschetti asserts that Equifax learned on July 29 that unauthorized individuals had accessed its database – including the names, Social Security numbers, addresses and other personally identifiable information of its customers. The complaint said it did not notify customers about the breach until Sept. 7.
The class-action seeks actual and statutory damages, equitable relief, restitution, reimbursement of out-of-pocket losses, and injunctive relief, including an order that requires Equifax to improve its data security and eliminate future privacy breaches.
Equifax also faced criticism for its initial terms. It originally prohibited victims who signed up for monitoring from suing. The company has since changed that clause.
Blood said even with this data breach, people should sign up for monitoring services because there really are not that many options.
“That’s one of the huge problems. You can’t trust them, but you can’t take your business elsewhere,” Blood said.
On its website, the CEO of Equifax apologized for the incident and said they “acted immediately to stop the intrusion.”
The breach occurred between mid-May and July. The company has faced scrutiny for not making that information public for several weeks.
