Mobile

T-Mobile offers customers free identity theft protection after hack because it’s the least they could do

Over 47 million people were affected by the hack.

by
Josiah Motley
August 20, 2021

Image: Unsplash

Giveaway: Enter to win a BLUETTI Charger 1 ($399 value): Enter Here

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

T-Mobile revealed a huge data breach at the beginning of the week that affected over 47 million people and now it is trying to get back in the good graces of some of these customers. The breach included customer names, driver’s license numbers, social security numbers, and more.

Now, the company is throwing a bone to customers by offering two years of free identity protection services through McAfee’s Identity Theft Protection Service. Normally $34 a year for a single device, T-Mobile users can sign up for the service through this link.

Essentially, this will give users dark web and credit monitoring, full-service ID resolution, $1 million identity insurance, and more. Once you sign up through the T-Mobile link, you’ll get an email from McAfee that explains the setup process in detail.

What makes this interesting is that many of the people affected in this hack may not even be T-Mobile customers, but instead just applied for credit. Others were prepaid customers that may not be with the company anymore. It’s not clear what T-Mobile is doing for those people.

Personally, as a recent T-Mobile customer due to the merger with Sprint, this seems like a weak attempt at placating users. I’m not interested in some free ID theft protection, I would just prefer that my data not be stolen in the first place.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.