Data breach settlements: what the big cases paid, and which have since closed

If you have used the internet in the last decade, your personal data has almost certainly been compromised in at least one data breach. Data breaches are one of the most common types of class action lawsuits, and the settlements often pay more than consumer product cases. The Identity Theft Resource Center reported over 3,200 data breaches in 2023 alone, exposing billions of records. Major companies including T-Mobile, AT&T, Equifax, and 23andMe have all suffered breaches that exposed millions of customers' sensitive information.

The good news is that many of these breaches have resulted in class action settlements that pay real money to affected individuals. This guide covers the biggest data breach settlements, how to check if you are affected, and how to file your claims.

The big data breach settlements, and where each one stands

Every settlement in this section is closed to new claims. Two of them closed recently and have not paid anyone yet. They are worth understanding anyway, because they set the pattern for what a breach settlement offers and what it actually delivers — but if you are here to file something, skip to finding a breach you can still claim.

Equifax — $700 million, claims closed 22 January 2024

What happened: in 2017 attackers exploited a vulnerability Equifax had failed to patch, and went undetected for 76 days. Because Equifax is a credit bureau, the stolen data was as sensitive as it gets: Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver's licence numbers for 147 million Americans.

Status: closed. The FTC's own refunds page states plainly that "the deadline to file a claim was January 22, 2024".

What it actually paid is the more useful lesson, and it is not the number people remember. The advertised alternative was "up to $125", the FTC had to warn that the cash pot was capped at $31 million so claimants would get "far less", and documented-loss claims were advertised at up to $20,000. We work through the real per-person figures in what class actions actually pay.

T-Mobile — $350 million, claims closed 23 January 2023

What happened: in August 2021 an attacker took the personal information of current, former and prospective customers — 76.6 million people, including Social Security and driver's licence numbers.

Status: closed and finished. Final approval came on 29 June 2023 and the fund had been fully distributed by May 2025.

Worth knowing: class members received $25 as the base payment, and documented losses could be claimed up to $25,000. The fee award in this case was later cut on appeal as a "windfall" relative to what the class received — the arithmetic of that is in what percentage goes to the lawyers.

AT&T — $177 million, claims closed 18 December 2025

What happened: two separate incidents in 2024. In March, AT&T-specific data appeared on the dark web (the "AT&T 1" incident, roughly 73 million accounts). In July, data was downloaded from an AT&T workspace on the Snowflake cloud platform (the "AT&T 2" incident, covering call and text records). The cases were consolidated as In re AT&T Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, MDL No. 3:24-md-03114-E, before Judge Ada E. Brown in the Northern District of Texas.

Status: the claim window closed on 18 December 2025 and, in the administrator's words, "claim forms are no longer available". The final approval hearing was held on 15 January 2026, and as of the administrator's most recent update the court has still not ruled. Nothing has been paid, and appeals could follow approval.

What was on offer: AT&T 1 claimants could take a documented-loss payment of up to $5,000, or a pro-rata tier payment (five times larger if their Social Security number was exposed). AT&T 2 claimants could take up to $2,500 documented, or a pro-rata share. The per-person amounts are still unknown because they depend on how many valid claims came in. If you filed, the official settlement site is where the decision will be posted.

23andMe — $30 million, claims closed 17 February 2026

What happened: attackers used credential stuffing — passwords stolen from other breaches — to get into about 14,000 accounts in 2023. Through the DNA Relatives feature that gave them the genetic and profile data of roughly 6.9 million connected users.

Status, and this is the part that matters: the settlement was approved on 30 January 2026, but by a bankruptcy judge. 23andMe filed for bankruptcy and was sold to TTAM Research Institute, and payments cannot be distributed until the bankruptcy reconciliation is resolved, which is expected to take a long time. If you filed a claim, there is nothing to do but wait, and the wait is open-ended.

Approved claimants were eligible for reimbursement of up to $10,000 in documented losses plus five years of Privacy & Medical Shield with genetic monitoring. The administrator is Kroll.

Yahoo — $117.5 million, claims long closed

What happened: two breaches, in 2013 and 2014, not disclosed until 2016. The 2013 breach reached every Yahoo account then in existence — three billion of them — making it the largest by record count ever recorded.

Status: closed. Distributions have gone to people who filed before the deadline; no new claims are accepted. Claimants received roughly $25 or two years of credit monitoring, with documented losses claimable up to $25,000.

Capital One — $190 million, claims closed 30 September 2022

What happened: in 2019 a former Amazon Web Services employee exploited a misconfigured firewall to reach Capital One's cloud-stored credit-card application data — Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, credit scores and limits for about 100 million Americans and 6 million Canadians.

Status: closed. The claim deadline was extended once, to 30 September 2022, and has long passed. Claimants could recover documented losses up to $25,000 plus identity-protection services. Note that Capital One's separate $425 million settlement over savings-account interest is a different case and not a data breach matter.

Finding a breach you can still claim

None of the six above is claimable. Breach settlements open and close constantly, so a list written into an article is out of date within weeks — which is why the current ones live in two places that update themselves rather than in this paragraph.

• Open settlements — every settlement no longer accepting claims, data breach or otherwise, with its deadline and payout. This is the list to check if you want to file something today.
• The data breach tracker — a company-by-company record of reported breaches, including ones that have not produced a settlement. Useful when you have had a notification letter and want to know whether litigation exists yet, which is usually months ahead of any claim form.

The two answer different questions. A breach being listed does not mean money is available; most breaches never produce a consumer settlement at all, and the ones that do take one to three years to get there. If a settlement email arrives in the meantime, it is worth checking the sender against the administrator's real address before you enter anything into it — breach victims are a heavily targeted group for exactly this reason.

How to Check If Your Data Was Breached

You might be affected by more data breaches than you realize. Here is how to check:

1. Check Your Email

Companies are legally required to notify affected individuals after a breach. Search your email inbox (including spam and promotions folders) for terms like "data breach," "security incident," "unauthorized access," or "notice of data breach." These notifications often include instructions for filing a claim or activating free credit monitoring.

2. Use HaveIBeenPwned.com

This free service, run by security researcher Troy Hunt, lets you enter your email address and see if it has appeared in any known data breaches. It covers hundreds of breaches and is updated regularly. If your email appears, it tells you which breach exposed it and what data was compromised.

3. Check the Company's Breach Notification Website

After major breaches, companies typically set up dedicated websites where you can check if your account was affected. For example, Equifax created equifaxbreachsettlement.com and T-Mobile created a dedicated claims portal. These sites often let you search by email address or last name.

4. Review Your Accounts

If you were a customer of any of the companies listed in this article during the breach period, you are likely affected. Check your records:

• Were you a T-Mobile customer before August 2021?
• Did you have a Yahoo email account before 2016?
• Did you use 23andMe and enable DNA Relatives?
• Did you apply for a Capital One credit card before 2019?
• Were you an AT&T customer before 2020?

How to File a Data Breach Claim

The filing process for data breach settlements is generally straightforward:

1. Choose your claim type. Most settlements offer a basic claim (flat payment, no documentation needed) and an enhanced claim (higher payment for documented losses). If you spent time or money dealing with identity theft, file the enhanced claim.
2. Gather documentation if applicable. For enhanced claims, collect bank statements showing fraudulent charges, receipts for credit monitoring services you purchased, credit reports showing unauthorized accounts, and a written estimate of time spent dealing with the breach (valued at $25/hour in many settlements).
3. Submit the claim form. Fill out the required information and submit before the deadline. Most data breach settlements are filed on the administrator’s own website. Class Action Buddy supports a small number of settlements in the app, where it fills the official PDF from your profile and captures your signature before the signed claim is printed and mailed — you remain the claimant throughout.
4. Wait for payment. Payouts typically arrive 3-12 months after the claims deadline. Keep your address current.

Maximizing Your Data Breach Payout

Most people file the basic claim and move on. But if a breach caused you real harm, you can often claim significantly more. Here is how to maximize your payout:

• Document everything. Keep a log of time spent on hold with banks, time changing passwords, time dealing with fraudulent accounts. Many settlements value your time at $25/hour.
• Save receipts. If you purchased credit monitoring, identity theft protection, or credit freeze services because of the breach, those costs are usually reimbursable.
• Check for identity theft. Pull your credit reports from all three bureaus (free at AnnualCreditReport.com). If there are accounts you did not open, document them — this dramatically increases your claim value.
• File for out-of-pocket losses. Fraudulent charges, replacement card fees, notary fees for affidavits, and similar expenses are all claimable in most settlements.
• Claim the free services. Even if the cash payout is small, the free credit monitoring and identity protection services offered as part of many settlements are worth $100-$300 per year. Activate them.

Protecting Yourself After a Breach

Filing a claim gets you compensated for the past, but you also need to protect yourself going forward:

• Freeze your credit. This is free at all three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) and prevents anyone from opening new accounts in your name. You can temporarily lift the freeze when you need to apply for credit.
• Use unique passwords. If the breach exposed your password, change it everywhere you used the same one. Use a password manager to maintain unique passwords for every account.
• Enable two-factor authentication. This adds a second layer of security beyond your password, making it much harder for hackers to access your accounts even if they have your password.
• Monitor your accounts. Set up alerts on your bank and credit card accounts for any transactions you did not authorize. Most banks offer free transaction alerts via text or email.
• File an IRS Identity Protection PIN. If your Social Security number was exposed, an IP PIN prevents someone from filing a fraudulent tax return in your name. Request one at irs.gov.

Why Data Breach Lawsuits Matter

Beyond the individual payouts, data breach class actions serve an important purpose: they hold companies accountable for failing to protect customer data. Several data breaches have led to history-changing class action lawsuits and are among the largest class action settlements ever recorded. When a breach costs a company hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement payments, it creates a powerful financial incentive to invest in security.

Companies that face class action consequences for breaches tend to spend significantly more on cybersecurity afterward. The T-Mobile settlement, for example, included a requirement that T-Mobile spend $150 million improving its data security infrastructure. Without the class action, that investment might never have happened.

Every claim you file reinforces the message that companies must take data security seriously. And every dollar you collect is money that is rightfully yours — compensation for having your most sensitive personal information exposed through someone else's negligence.

How Class Action Buddy Helps

While many data breach settlements require filing through the official settlement website, Class Action Buddy helps you keep track of which settlements have since closed and when their deadlines are. The app sends push notification reminders before deadlines close, so you never miss an opportunity to file.

For consumer product settlements (which make up the majority of our current listings), the app goes further: it auto-fills your claim forms, shows a live PDF preview, and submits claims digitally. Check our active settlements page to see what is available now, including the Comcast Xfinity data breach settlement and other data breach claims.

Download for iOS or Android.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if my data was part of a breach?

Companies are legally required to notify you if your data was breached. Check your email (including spam) for breach notification letters. You can also use free tools like HaveIBeenPwned.com to check if your email address has appeared in known data breaches. If you were a customer of a breached company during the relevant time period, you are likely affected.

How much money can I get from a data breach settlement?

Basic claims without documented losses typically pay $25-$100 per person. If you can document specific losses like identity theft, fraudulent charges, or time spent dealing with the breach, you can claim significantly more — sometimes up to $20,000 or more depending on the settlement.

Do I need proof to file a data breach claim?

For the basic payout tier, you usually just need to confirm you were a customer during the breach period. For higher payouts, you need to document your losses — things like bank statements showing fraudulent charges, receipts for credit monitoring services, or a log of time spent dealing with identity theft.

Can I file multiple data breach settlements?

Yes. If your data was compromised in multiple breaches (which is increasingly common), you can file a separate claim for each settlement. There is no limit on the number of data breach settlements you can participate in.

Is it worth filing a data breach claim for a small amount?

Yes. A $25-$50 payout for 5 minutes of work is a good use of your time. Additionally, data breach settlements often include free credit monitoring and identity protection services worth hundreds of dollars per year. The non-cash benefits alone make filing worthwhile.

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