• by Ray Schultz , September 5, 2018

The full impact of the Equifax data breach is not yet known. At last count, 140 million consumers had their data stolen, including email addresses and Tax ID numbers.

But consumers have largely dropped the subject — at least non-litigants have.

YouGov found in a study that “slightly more people are hearing negative things about the firm than positive — but just barely,” the firm states in a post on Forbes.

To determine this, YouGov applied its Buzz metric, asking U.S. consumers whether they have heard anything positive or negative about the credit bureau in the previous two weeks. 

Prior to the news of the breach breaking last September, Equiax had a Buzz score of 1. A month later, that was down to -34. Today, it stands at -2.

Rivals TransUnion and Experian, which suffered slight dips in their Buzz scores from being in the same business, have also recovered.

And YovGov reports that only 3% of U.S. adults are talking about Equifax, compared with 2% who were talking about it prior to the scandal.

The explanation? 

“Consumers felt a mixture of concern and frustration,” YouGov says. “As data from YouGov’s Plan & Track service shows, the public’s perception of Equifax declined at a quicker rate than other companies that have suffered similar data breaches in recent years.”