If you own a smartphone, you probably use at least one money app to pay bills, transfer money, or manage other finance-related activities. Plaid, Inc. is a fintech company that links users’ bank accounts to 5,000 money apps like Venmo, Robinhood, and others.

Some people have received emails telling them they may be eligible for payment as part of a class action settlement if they connect their financial accounts to an app that uses Plaid. Viewer Sandy emailed VERIFY asking if the Plaid class action settlement notice is real.

Is Plaid, Inc.’s Notice of Class Action Settlement Real?

Yes, the Plaid, Inc. Class Action Settlement Notice is real. You may be eligible to participate in the class action settlement if you lived in the United States and connected a financial account to an eligible application between January 1, 2013 and November 19, 2021.

The class action settlement stems from a court case, Cottle et. see v. Plaid, Inc., which alleges that Plaid used consumers’ banking login credentials “to harvest and sell detailed financial data without their consent.”

Lieff Cabraser Heimann and Bernstein, a law firm representing plaintiffs in the class action, said a judge granted preliminary approval to the $58 million class action settlement on Nov. 19, 2021. Final approval is scheduled for May 12, 2022, according to a website devoted to the colony. The approval process can take several months, or even longer in the event of an appeal.

The class action alleges that Plaid obtained more financial data than necessary for an application and obtained login credentials through its user interface which had “the look and feel of the user’s bank account login screen “, says the settlement website. Plaid denies the allegations and any wrongdoing.

You may be eligible to participate in the class action settlement if you lived in the United States and connected a financial account to an eligible app between January 1, 2013 and November 19, 2021, according to the settlement’s website. You can search online to see if specific apps or services connected to your financial accounts were using Plaid. Claims must be submitted online at www.plaidsettlement.com/submit-claim or postmarked by April 28, 2022, the settlement website says.

As part of the settlement, Plaid will establish a $58 million fund. After deducting attorney’s fees and other expenses, the remaining money will be distributed to class members in equal shares. The amount of payouts will depend on the number of valid claims filed, an FAQ page for the settlement says. It is not possible to provide an estimated payout amount before the claims filing deadline, according to the FAQ page.

Each person can only submit one claim, even if their financial accounts were connected to multiple apps or services through Plaid, the FAQ page says.

More CHECK: Who is Eligible to Participate in the Old Navy Class Action Settlement?