Dad Joke
Somebody just threw a bunch of omega 3 pills at me...
But luckily, I only suffered super fish oil injuries.
Now Let’s Make Your Money Smile
Equifax is paying $100 million because it got about 4 million credit scores wrong
For roughly three weeks in the spring of 2022, a coding error at Equifax sent lenders the wrong credit scores for about four million people who were applying for mortgages, car loans and credit cards. According to the lawsuit, some scores came back more than 20 points off. Equifax has now agreed to pay $100 million to end the case — which the lawyers who brought it call the largest class-action settlement ever reached under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the details.
Sit with that for a second, because this is the part that matters more than the money. Nobody in that group got a letter. There was no alert. If you were turned down in March 2022, or you got approved at a worse rate than you expected and figured that was just what you deserved, you would have had no way on earth to know why. You’d have blamed yourself. Most people did.
I’m telling you this because it’s the cleanest proof I’ve seen of something I’ve said for thirty years: the number these companies report about you is not a fact of nature. It’s a calculation, run by a company, and companies make mistakes.
Now the important part. You cannot claim any of this money yet. It still needs a judge’s sign-off, and only after that will there be an official website and formal notice in the mail — that’s the process the court filings lay out, and there’s no shortcut around it.
So here’s my own warning, and I’d rather be early than late on this one: if anyone contacts you this week offering to get you that settlement money — a text, a call, a site asking for your Social Security number — walk away. Settlements this size attract imitators before the real claim process ever opens. There is nothing to claim yet. Wait for the notice.
You can check all three credit reports free every week, and most people still don’t know it
Here’s the thing to actually go do. Not once a year — every week, from all three bureaus, permanently. That temporary pandemic-era program was made permanent, and the FTC says so plainly. The only authorized site is annualcreditreport.com.
I bring it up today for an obvious reason: the Equifax story is about four million people who couldn’t see something that was being said about them. You can see it. It takes about ten minutes and it costs nothing, and it’s the single highest-value ten minutes in personal finance that almost nobody spends.
And if you pull it and something’s wrong, the dispute is where people get stuck — so here’s why your TransUnion or Experian dispute isn’t working, and what to do about it.
The postcard promising veterans extra benefits is a phishing operation
The FTC put this out today. Veterans around the country are getting postcards saying they — or their spouse — might qualify for extra monthly benefits through something called the “Veterans Savings Program.”
That program does not exist.
The postcard is good, though. It often names the state you actually live in, and it name-drops real benefits like CHAMPVA or TRICARE For Life so it reads as official. Then it tells you to call right away or risk losing out. That urgency is the entire trick — they want you on the phone before you’ve had a chance to check, so they can walk you through handing over your Social Security number or your bank details.
If one lands in your mailbox: don’t call the number on it. Call the VA directly at 1-800-827-1000, a number you can verify yourself. The FTC’s alert is here.
You probably know someone this was mailed to. Older veteran, spouse of one, the kind of person who still reads their mail carefully and takes a government-looking postcard seriously. That’s who it’s built for.
How often people sue the credit bureaus, in case you thought Equifax was a one-off
Between Thursday and this morning, I counted at least 47 new federal lawsuits filed against Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — 22, 12 and 13 respectively. Most of them are ordinary people saying the report is wrong and nobody would fix it.
“At least” is doing real work in that sentence, and I want to be straight with you about why. I can only see federal court, and plenty of these cases get filed in state court where I’m not looking at all. The federal index also runs a week or two behind. So 47 is a floor, not a total. The real number is higher and I can’t tell you by how much.
What readers keep asking me
A pattern I keep seeing: parents who cosigned a student loan, the child stopped paying, and the parent found out from a collector.
Here’s what surprises almost everyone in that spot. Cosigning is not splitting the debt. You are not on the hook for half. You are fully liable for all of it, the same as if you’d borrowed the money yourself — and it’s been sitting on your credit report the whole time. For a parent near retirement, that’s the difference between a manageable problem and a genuinely frightening one, and it usually arrives with no warning at all.
If something like that is happening in your family, ask me about it directly. It’s free, it’s private, and I’m not selling you anything.
Before you go
If you’re not on my weekday briefing yet, that’s here — it goes deeper on one thing instead of wider on five.
And if one of these was useful, send it to the person it applies to. The veterans postcard one especially — the FTC’s own advice on that scam is to spread the word, because scammers never mail just one.
Everything here is my read on the news, not instructions for your situation. You know things about your own life that I don’t.
Look — a credit score got four million people quietly punished for something none of them did, and the fix took four years and a lawsuit. That’s genuinely infuriating. But the reason I’ve stayed in this work since 1994 is that the ordinary version of this story ends better than people expect. Not with a windfall, and not because anyone rides in. It ends because somebody finally looks at the actual paperwork, finds the thing that was wrong, and starts making decisions with real information instead of shame. You can do that this week. You can do it in ten minutes.
Back tomorrow.
— Steve
Bonus Section
A few places I actually use, and what I get out of telling you. Each one shows a plain link and my referral link. If you use mine, the company may hand us both a small bonus. The plain link goes to exactly the same place — it just pays me nothing, and you nothing. Use whichever you like; genuinely, it’s your call.
I’ve also listed places I like that pay me nothing at all, so you can see the difference.
Cash that actually earns something
Betterment — their Cash Reserve account is the closest thing here to a plain high-yield savings account. (my referral link)
Saving without having to think about it
Acorns — rounds up your spare change and invests it automatically. I pay for it, and the reason is simple: it saves money I’d otherwise spend without noticing. (my referral link)
Investing
Robinhood — the platform I run my own experiment on. (my referral link)
And three I recommend on merit, where I get nothing at all: Vanguard for low-cost index funds, Schwab for a full-service brokerage, and American Century — I was a happy customer there for decades.
Rates and terms move, and each of these has its own conditions. Go look at today’s numbers before you move a dollar.
A free conversation about your situation
Damon Day is an independent debt coach, and my co-host on Get Out of Debt Guy. I want you to know that before you decide anything. I receive no payment for this referral.
The consultation is free. The only time money changes hands is if you decide you want to hire him as a consultant. Go to DamonDay.com and schedule — he doesn’t cold-call anybody, and neither do I.
Or ask me, anonymously
Ask Steve — free, private, and I’m not selling anything. No account, no email, no sales pitch at the end of it.