Overwhelmed by requests from consumers seeking compensation related to the giant 2017 data breach at the credit bureau Equifax, the Federal Trade Commission is recommending that people accept free credit monitoring rather than cash.

In a blog post published on Wednesday, the agency announced that because of the high volume of requests, the F.T.C. would not be able to offer $125 to consumers whose data was hacked, the upper limit of what was initially offered. Instead, the commission is recommending that consumers seek credit-monitoring services.

“The public response to the settlement has been overwhelming,” wrote Robert Schoshinski, assistant director of the F.T.C.’s division of privacy and identity protection, referring to an agreement reached with Equifax last week.

As a result, “each person who takes the money option will wind up only getting a small amount of money,” he added. “Nowhere near the $125 they could have gotten if there hadn’t been such an enormous number of claims filed.”