Is the Plaid Settlement Legit? Real Notices, Claims, and Payouts

Yes, the Plaid settlement is legitimate. If you received an email or postcard notice about In re Plaid, Inc. Privacy Litigation, it came from a real $58 million class action settlement approved by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, case number 4:20-md-03056.1Snopes. Plaid Settlement Scam or Legit2PlaidSettlement.com. In re Plaid, Inc. Privacy Litigation – Settlement3Top Class Actions. Plaid Data Privacy $58M Class Action Settlement

Why the Notice Looks Like a Scam

The suspicion is understandable. Notices arrived unsolicited in early 2022, often landed in spam folders, and asked recipients to visit a website and enter personal information. Those are the same signals people are told to watch for in phishing attempts. The fact-checking site Snopes reviewed the notices and confirmed they traced back to the real court case and the court-approved settlement website.1Snopes. Plaid Settlement Scam or Legit

There’s an added layer of irony: the underlying lawsuit accused Plaid of tricking consumers by mimicking their bank’s login screen. So people were being told, in an unexpected email, that they’d been deceived by a company — through a message that itself had the shape of a scam.

How To Tell if a Plaid Settlement Communication Is Real

Every legitimate communication about this case points to the same set of contacts. Anything that sends you elsewhere, or asks for payment, is not part of the real settlement.

The real settlement never asked claimants to pay anything, and never requested a Social Security number to participate. A message demanding either is fraudulent.

What the Lawsuit Was About

Plaid is a financial technology company that connects consumer bank accounts to apps like Venmo, Cash App, Coinbase, and Stripe. At the time of the litigation, its platform reached more than 11,000 U.S. financial institutions and had access to data from over 200 million consumer bank accounts.5U.S. Department of Justice. Protecting Nascent Competition: Visa and Plaid Abandon Anticompetitive Merger

Five lawsuits filed between May and July 2020 were consolidated into a single action with eleven named plaintiffs and an estimated class of about 98 million people.6Courthouse News Service. Judge Approves Settlement Ordering Plaid to Pay $58 Million for Selling Consumer Data7FindLaw. In re Plaid Inc. Privacy Litigation The plaintiffs alleged that Plaid’s login interface, “Plaid Link,” was designed to resemble a user’s own bank login page — same branding, same colors — so users thought they were entering their credentials directly with their bank. They also alleged that once Plaid had those credentials, it pulled far more financial data, including full transaction histories, than the connecting app actually needed.2PlaidSettlement.com. In re Plaid, Inc. Privacy Litigation – Settlement

Plaid denied the allegations and maintained that it disclosed its data practices adequately.2PlaidSettlement.com. In re Plaid, Inc. Privacy Litigation – Settlement8ClassAction.org. Cottle et al. v. Plaid Inc. – Preliminary Approval Order

Is It Too Late To File a Claim?

Yes. The claim deadline was April 28, 2022, and more than one million claims were submitted before it closed.9PlaidSettlement.com. Submit Claim – Plaid Settlement10Burns Charest LLP. $58 Million Settlement in Plaid Privacy Class Action Receives Final Approval U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu granted final approval on July 20, 2022.11Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP. Final Approval Granted to $58 Million Settlement in Plaid Consumer Privacy Lawsuit2PlaidSettlement.com. In re Plaid, Inc. Privacy Litigation – Settlement3Top Class Actions. Plaid Data Privacy $58M Class Action Settlement

By October 2023, a second round of payments was determined not to be economically feasible, and remaining funds were sent to two court-approved cy pres recipients: the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and Consumer Reports.2PlaidSettlement.com. In re Plaid, Inc. Privacy Litigation – Settlement If you didn’t file a claim, no additional payment window has been announced, and any message telling you otherwise should be treated with suspicion.

What Plaid Had To Change

The settlement also required Plaid to change its practices for at least three years in the United States. Plaid had to delete transaction data for users whose linked apps never actually requested that data, or where Plaid no longer had valid bank authentication.6Courthouse News Service. Judge Approves Settlement Ordering Plaid to Pay $58 Million for Selling Consumer Data Going forward, the company can store only the categories of data the connecting app requests or that are necessary to deliver its service, unless the user gives express consent for more.12Proskauer Rose LLP. Settlement in Plaid Fintech Data Case

Plaid also had to stop using a bank’s own color scheme on its credential entry screen, disclose its role clearly during account linking, and get affirmative agreement to its privacy policy rather than burying consent in fine print.12Proskauer Rose LLP. Settlement in Plaid Fintech Data Case2PlaidSettlement.com. In re Plaid, Inc. Privacy Litigation – Settlement13Plaid. Plaid Legal That portal is the practical step still open to consumers today, whether or not they filed a claim.