MySchoolBucks Lawsuit: Eligibility, Payouts, and Key Dates

The MySchoolBucks lawsuit settlement is an $18.25 million class action resolution with Heartland Payment Systems, which parents accused of disguising credit and debit card surcharges as school-imposed “program fees” on its school lunch payment platform. A federal judge in Florida gave final approval on September 25, 2025, and payments to approved claimants began going out electronically on January 9, 2026.¹² Heartland did not admit wrongdoing.

Who Qualifies for a Payment

The settlement class covers anyone in the United States who used a credit or debit card to load money onto a MySchoolBucks account for school lunch purchases between June 18, 2013, and July 31, 2019. There is one extra condition: your last qualifying transaction must have fallen on or after January 1, 2015.³⁴

Claimants did not have to produce receipts or statements. The settlement administrator, Eisner Advisory Group LLC, pulled eligibility and fee totals directly from Heartland’s transaction records.² The claims deadline was August 20, 2025, and the deadline to object was August 28, 2025.⁵

How Much Each Claimant Gets

Payments are proportional to the number of program fees a claimant paid during the class period. The $18.25 million fund is divided as follows:

Attorney fees and expenses: up to $5,475,000.
Settlement administration costs: up to $10,000.
Service awards to class representatives: up to $15,000 total.
The remainder goes to class members, distributed proportionally based on fees paid.

The settlement FAQ gave a working example: a parent who paid about $10 in program fees could expect something in the range of roughly $5 to $21, with the exact figure depending on how many people filed valid claims.⁶ Larger payouts went to parents who had made more frequent deposits over the six-year window.

What the Lawsuit Alleged

Lead plaintiff Max Story, a Jacksonville Beach, Florida, attorney, filed the complaint on May 14, 2019.⁷ The MySchoolBucks terms of service, he said, told parents the “Program Fee” was imposed by the school and that the school “receives the full payment.” According to the complaint, the fees were actually credit and debit card surcharges set, collected, and kept by Heartland.⁸ Story said he had thought the fees were going to his children’s school.⁹

The complaint said labeling the charges as “program fees” rather than card surcharges violated the operating rules of Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express, which impose specific disclosure requirements on surcharges. Plaintiffs brought claims under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, the New Jersey Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act, the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and breach of contract and unjust enrichment theories.⁸¹⁰

After the suit was filed, court documents said, Heartland pushed a pop-up requiring MySchoolBucks users to accept updated terms that included mandatory arbitration, a class action ban, and a specific waiver of the right to join Story’s case. Second named plaintiff Nancy Murrey-Settle refused the new terms and was locked out of her account, unable to reach the funds Heartland held for her. The original terms had contained none of these restrictions.⁸ Heartland also deposited $40,000 into Story’s bank account in what appeared to be an effort to moot his individual claim; Story reversed the transfer.⁷

How Big the Fees Were

The per-transaction program fee was typically $2.49, though it varied by district and reached as high as $3.25 in some cases.⁸ Discovery in the case showed Heartland collected roughly $192 million in program fees between 2013 and 2019. Less than one-third of that revenue went to actual credit card processing costs, according to the same records. Heartland had tried to keep the $192 million figure under seal.¹¹

MySchoolBucks is the largest school lunch payment processor in the country, used by roughly 38% of enrolled students across the 300 largest public school districts, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.¹²

Key Dates

The case, Story v. Heartland Payment Systems, LLC, was heard in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida before Senior Judge Timothy J. Corrigan.¹³¹⁴⁵²

What the Settlement Did Not Change

The settlement resolved past claims and did not require Heartland to cut fees going forward. In 2024, MySchoolBucks raised its charges to $3.25 for credit and debit card payments and $2.75 for electronic checks. Heartland School Solutions President Jeremy Loch attributed the increases to rising interchange fees and operational costs. In its legal filings, Heartland maintained that it charges fees to cover the costs of operating the platform and earn a reasonable profit.¹¹

As of 2024, the MySchoolBucks terms of service still contained a class action waiver and mandatory arbitration clause, meaning new users give up the right to join collective litigation as a condition of using the platform.⁷ Parents generally cannot choose a different processor; that decision is made at the school district level.¹²

1
ClassAction.org. $18.25M Heartland Payment Systems Settlement Ends Class Action Suit Over MySchoolBucks Surcharge Fees
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ClaimDepot. MSB Fee Settlement
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Top Class Actions. $18.25M Heartland Payment Systems MySchoolBucks Fees Class Action Settlement
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Civil Eats. Are These Corporations Pocketing Your Kids’ Lunch Money
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The Washington Post. Lawsuit Alleges Lunch Payment Service Used in Local Schools Defrauded Parents
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Oklahoma Watch. Parents Swallow Egregious Junk Fees to Pay for School Lunches
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Issue Spotlight: Costs of Electronic Payments in K-12 Schools
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