Verizon Settles Class Action Suit — What You Need To Know if You’re Expecting Money
You may want to double check your account if you're expecting money from the settlement.
Published Jan. 7 2025, 3:12 p.m. ET
If you were one of the customers who signed up to take part in a 100 million dollar settlement as part of the class action lawsuit against Verizon, you may be excited to hear that payments are beginning to go out as part of the lawsuit.
However, before you start mentally spending your windfall, you'll want to find out whether you're part of the group that isn't quite getting the $100 per customer folks thought they would be seeing.
Keep reading to find out why the payments from the Verizon class action settlement don't seem to be everything that people were hoping for, including when you can expect your cash to hit your bank account so that you can be prepared to finally wrap this lawsuit from April 2024 up.
What was the Verizon class action lawsuit?
In 2024, disgruntled customers came together to file a class action lawsuit over what they claimed were unreasonable monthly administrative fees, according to a Charlotte affiliate of NBC News.
To take part in the suit, you needed to be a Verizon wireless customer between the years of 2016 and 2023.
Interested parties had to file their paperwork by April 2024 to participate, and anyone who failed to get their name onto the legal document by the cutoff date was unfortunately disqualified from the settlement.
Verizon class action claimants are receiving their settlements.
The Top Class Actions website stated that payments would start processing in December 2024, and some folks have already started receiving their money through the payment channels set up when they filed their paperwork, including Venmo and PayPal.
While many expected to see an initial payment of $15 hit their account as per the terms of the agreement, some could receive an additional dollar for each month during the eligible period where customers were charged Administrative and Telco Recovery charges, up to $100. Tragically, many people didn't receive even the $15 they anticipated.
People have taken to TikTok to share how much they were paid out, with one user sarcastically describing his "fat a--" payday, which totaled just $3.11.
Another user who goes by the handle @naerielcee says she received a whopping $5, to which she replied, "What am I going to do with $5?" Her followers jumped into the comments to share their settlement payout figures, ranging from $2.96 to nearly $15.
So, why aren't people receiving the $100 they thought they would receive? According to NBC News, there are a few different factors at play, including the number of people who signed up to take part in the settlement and the cost of the lawyer fees.
That information was given to claimants when they first agreed to join the suit, although the language may not have been clear enough for everyone to understand.
NBC News notes that a statement was included in the settlement agreement, which featured the following verbiage. "In the event the aggregate Settlement Payments across all Valid Claimant accounts exceed the Net Distributable Funds, the Settlement Payment issued to each Valid Claimant account will be reduced on a pro rata basis, as determined by the Settlement Administrator."