Plaid Settles Lawsuit for $58M, Payments Sent Out

Plaid Settles Lawsuit for $58M, File Claim Now

Update: Payments for timely valid claims began distributing on November 16, 2022. This process may take a week or more to complete depending on your payout method. If you do not receive your mailed check or you did not receive or could not retrieve your digital payment, you may contact the Administrator by email at questions@plaidsettlement.com or by phone at 1-855-645-1115 for assistance.

Plaid is a widely used service that enables connections between a user’s financial account and approximately 5,000 mobile and web-based apps that consumers use to make payments, transfer money, pay bills, manage their personal finances, make investments, and apply for loans, among other finance-related activities.

The complaint in this case alleges that Plaid took certain improper actions by obtaining log-in credentials to user’s financial accounts through a user interface called Plaid Link that the complaint alleges was designed to have the look and feel of the user’s bank account login screen, when in fact the username and password were actually being provided to Plaid, and obtaining more financial and other data than was authorized or needed by a user’s app. The time period at issue is January 1, 2013 to November 19, 2021.

The Court has not decided in favor of Plaintiffs or Plaid on the ultimate merits of Plaintiffs’ claims. Instead, both sides agreed to a Settlement.

To confirm whether specific apps or services that connected to your financial account(s) used Plaid for the account connections, you can view the SEARCH FOR APP/SERVICE page by clicking here.

Who’s Eligible?

You are a Class Member, and you are affected by this Settlement, if you are a United States resident and:

own or owned one or more “Financial Accounts” (see definition in Question 7);
Plaid (a) accessed your Financial Account; or (b) obtained your Financial Account login credentials, between January 1, 2013 and November 19, 2021; and
You were a United States resident at the time (2)(a) or (b) occurred. See Questions 7, 8, and 9 for more information about these terms.

“Financial Account” means any checking, savings, loan, or other account at a financial institution (1) that Plaid accessed using the user’s login credentials and connected to a mobile or web-based financial technology application that enables payments (including ACH payments) or other money transfers or (2) for which a user provided financial account login credentials to Plaid through Plaid Link. A Financial Account does not include an account that was connected, or for which credentials were provided, exclusively through an OAuth Process or Managed OAuth Process.

Related: See All Settlement Rebates Here

Settlement Payout

Under the Settlement, Plaid will pay $58 million to establish a Settlement Fund.

After deducting any court-approved attorneys’ fees and expenses and Service Awards for the Class Representatives, and the costs of the settlement administration, the Settlement Fund will be distributed to Class Members on a pro rata basis. The amount of the payments to individual Class Members will depend on the number of valid claims that are filed.

Each Class Member who submits a valid claim for compensation will be paid one equal pro rata share from the Net Settlement Fund (the $58 million Settlement Fund minus any award of attorneys’ fees and expenses, settlement administration costs, and Service Awards for the Class Representatives). Each Class Member is entitled to submit only one claim for compensation from the Net Settlement Fund regardless of the number of applications they have connected to financial accounts via Plaid, or the number of their financial accounts that have been connected to apps. Because the final payment amount cannot be calculated before all claims for compensation are received and verified, it is not possible to provide an estimate of the payment amount before the deadline to file claims.

You must complete and submit a Claim Form no later than April 28, 2022.