If Equifax sent a lender the wrong credit score about you in the spring of 2022, a federal judge in Atlanta has already ordered you not to sue over it.
That’s paragraph 24 of the order Judge Leigh Martin May signed on August 17, 2026, preliminarily approving a $100 million class settlement in In re Equifax Fair Credit Reporting Act Litigation, No. 1:22-cv-03072 (N.D. Ga.). While the court decides whether to give the deal final approval, every class member is “preliminarily enjoined from” “filing, commencing, prosecuting, intervening in, or participating as plaintiff, claimant, or class member in any other lawsuit” based on the claims the settlement releases. The only way out is to opt out.
Most of the coverage is about the check. The check is the least interesting thing in the file.
What actually happened in 2022?
Equifax had what the settlement calls “the coding issue that Equifax experienced between March 17, 2022 and April 8, 2022”. The parties call it the “OMS Issue”. The court-approved notice describes the plaintiffs’ allegation this way: during those three weeks, “Equifax provided inaccurate credit information about millions of Americans applying for loans, insurance, or services from other businesses that use credit information.”
Equifax denies it broke the law. The agreement says, more than once, that paying isn’t an admission of anything.
Class counsel’s motion puts the class at “approximately four million individuals.” The core claim is about accuracy, under 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b):
Whenever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report it shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates.
That’s the whole duty. Reasonable procedures, maximum possible accuracy. A server that scrambles scores for three weeks is the kind of thing the plaintiffs say those words were written for.
Who’s in the class, and who decides?
Here’s the definition the court adopted:
All individuals in the United States for whom a credit score or credit attribute that differed from what it would have been absent the OMS Issue, according to the OMS Analysis, was reported by Equifax to a third party in connection with a Class Transaction.
Read the middle of that slowly. “[A]ccording to the OMS Analysis”. The OMS Analysis is “the analysis performed by Equifax in 2022”. A “Class Transaction” is one “that Equifax has identified in the OMS Analysis.” So the company that sent out the wrong scores is also the company whose analysis decides who got a wrong score. That’s how these cases go, since Equifax is the one holding the data. It’s still a little funny.
The class is nationwide, so Minnesotans are in it on the same terms as everyone else. If you got an email or a mailed notice, the long-form notice says that “according to Equifax’s records, you fall within this group.”
The math nobody’s headlining
Equifax pays $100 million into a non-reversionary fund. Out of it come court-approved attorneys’ fees, expenses, and the cost of running the settlement. Class counsel will ask for up to one-third of the fund, $33,333,333, plus up to $500,000 in expenses. Everyone who files a valid claim gets an equal share of what’s left, and the plaintiffs “currently estimate payments at approximately between $95 and $280”.
Now look at the statute. Section 1681n lets a consumer recover, for a willful violation, “damages of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000”. Four million people times the $100 floor is $400 million. Times the $1,000 ceiling, it’s $4 billion. The settlement is a quarter of the floor.
I don’t think that makes it a bad deal. Class counsel’s own motion lays out why they took it. Statutory damages require willfulness. Equifax contended “that any verdict for willful conduct would result in damages that are unconstitutional”. And Equifax argued that only people whose data was “read and relied on” by a third party had standing. Those are real risks. A $100 million fund on the table beats a $4 billion theory that might never reach a jury.
Run the payout estimate backward, too. Even if nobody took a dime in fees or costs, $100 million cut into $95 shares covers about 1.05 million people. So the low end of the estimate assumes roughly a quarter of the class files, or fewer. The notice says the range is “[b]ased on typical claims rates in similar cases”. Translation: most people won’t bother.
What you give up by doing nothing
This is the part that matters. Here’s the release:
“Released Claims” means any and all claims on behalf of the Settlement Class Members arising out of or relating to the OMS Issue, including those that were or could have been brought in the Action against any of the Released Parties.
“[A]rising out of or relating to” is about as wide as contract language gets. The agreement says the release reaches claims “that may be unknown, unanticipated, and/or unsuspected.” It waives California’s Civil Code § 1542 and “any law of any state or territory of the United States” that works the same way. And class counsel’s motion says the release includes “a waiver of claims under state consumer protection statutes.” A Minnesota-law theory goes out the door with the federal one.
You don’t have to file anything to be bound. Class members are bound “regardless of whether they file a Claim Form or receive any monetary payment from the Settlement”. The notice puts it plainly: do nothing, get no payment, and “give up the right to sue Equifax about these issues.”
Filing a claim binds you the same way. The claim form asks you to sign two sentences, and the second is: “I believe that I was harmed and wish to recover.” Then you get your share and you’ve released everything arising from the glitch. Somebody whose mortgage application died in April 2022 and somebody who never noticed a thing get the same check. The motion calls that equitable, because “all Settlement Class Members with valid claims will receive the same treatment”. Among four million people, it is. For the one with the denied mortgage, it’s a terrible trade.
A statutory-damages class and an actual-damages case are different animals
The FCRA has two damages sections, and the difference between them is the entire reason to think hard about this notice.
Section 1681o covers negligence. Anyone who “is negligent in failing to comply” owes “any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure”, plus costs and “reasonable attorney’s fees as determined by the court.” No willfulness. No statutory cap. But you have to prove a loss, and you have to prove the bad report caused it.
Section 1681n covers willful violations. It pays “any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or damages of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000”, plus “such amount of punitive damages as the court may allow”, plus fees. Willfulness is a high bar, and I’ve written about how the Supreme Court set it.
A class case runs on the statutory number. It’s the same for everybody, and nobody has to prove a personal loss. That’s what makes four million claims manageable in one courtroom, and it’s why everyone’s share here is equal.
An individual case runs the other way. It’s about one person’s actual damages. If a wrong score got your mortgage denied, or bumped your auto loan into a worse rate tier for six years, that’s a number with a paper trail, and § 1681o doesn’t cap it. Whether a particular person can prove it is a different question, and usually the hard one. Here’s what that proof looks like.
You don’t have to dispute anything with Equifax before you sue, either. Section 1681e(b) applies “[w]henever a consumer reporting agency prepares a consumer report”. The reinvestigation duties in § 1681i are the ones that kick in only “if the completeness or accuracy of any item of information contained in a consumer’s file at a consumer reporting agency is disputed by the consumer”. And don’t count on pulling your Equifax file to prove what score went out. The file-disclosure section says “nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to require a consumer reporting agency to disclose to a consumer any information concerning credit scores”. That’s one big reason the lender’s adverse-action letter from 2022 matters so much.
Look at how Equifax’s own standing argument cuts. According to class counsel’s motion, Equifax took the position that only people whose data was “read and relied on” have standing. Whatever that argument’s worth against a class of four million, it’s not much use against the person a lender turned down because of the score. That person was read and relied on. (For where standing in these cases stands after the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision, see our piece on TransUnion v. Ramirez.)
None of that is a promise. Plenty of people with real losses still lose on causation. But a check in the low hundreds is a strange trade for a five-figure loss you can document.
The clock has probably already run, unless the class case stopped it
Here’s the FCRA’s limitations section, 15 U.S.C. § 1681p. A case “may be brought in any appropriate United States district court, without regard to the amount in controversy, or in any other court of competent jurisdiction,” so the statute itself doesn’t send an opt-out to Atlanta. But it has to be brought:
not later than the earlier of— (1) 2 years after the date of discovery by the plaintiff of the violation that is the basis for such liability; or (2) 5 years after the date on which the violation that is the basis for such liability occurs.
Do the math on the person this article is for. If a lender turned you down in spring 2022 and sent you a letter saying why, you probably discovered the problem in 2022. Two years from that is 2024. On the face of the statute, that clock is done. The only things that keep an individual claim alive are a later discovery date or tolling from the class case. So the claim worth thinking about already depends on tolling.
The tolling rule comes from American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974). The Supreme Court held that “the commencement of a class action suspends the applicable statute of limitations as to all asserted members of the class”, 414 U.S. at 554. Two limits are built into that. It covers “asserted members of the class”, so it only helps if you fall inside the class the case actually asserted. And it’s a suspension, not a restart. In American Pipe itself, the Court said the class suit “suspended the running of the limitation period only during the pendency of the motion to strip the suit of its class action character”, and the would-be plaintiffs got only the 11 days that had been left on the clock. 414 U.S. at 561.
Here’s what that means for an opt-out. Once you’re excluded, the order says, you “will not be a Settlement Class Member”. Plan on your suspension ending right there, with whatever was left on your two-year clock running again. And if part of those two years ran before the class case was filed, only the remainder comes back. Opt out on November 27 and plan to file soon after, not next year.
The five-year clock sits on top of all that. The reports went out between March 17 and April 8, 2022, so five years runs out between March 17 and April 8, 2027. And it may not bend at all. In California Public Employees’ Retirement System v. ANZ Securities, Inc., No. 16-373 (U.S. June 26, 2017), the Court held that “the American Pipe tolling rule does not apply” to a statute of repose. It also said that a time bar that “runs from the defendant’s last culpable act . . . not from the accrual of the claim” carries “close to a dispositive indication that the statute is one of repose.” That case was about the Securities Act, not the FCRA. But § 1681p’s second clock runs from “the date on which the violation . . . occurs”, and nobody with a real loss should volunteer to be the test case on what that means.
How to opt out, straight from the order
Paragraph 17 of the preliminary-approval order and the court-approved notice set the rules:
- Mail it. A class member “must mail a compliant, written Opt-Out Request to the Settlement Administrator”.
- Postmark it by November 27, 2026, to: Equifax FCRA Litigation, P.O. Box 301132, Los Angeles, CA 90030-1132.
- Put in your full name, current street address, email address (if any), “a clear statement that the Settlement Class Member wishes to be excluded from the Settlement Class”, and your personal signature. If you have a lawyer, add the lawyer’s name, address, phone number, and email. The notice also asks for the case name and number: In re Equifax Fair Credit Reporting Act Litigation, No. 1:22-cv-3072-LMM-CCB.
- Do it yourself. “[N]o mass or class opt-outs shall be permitted”, and the notice says “No third-party or company can complete an opt-out for you.”
- Pick one. You can’t opt out and object. Send both and the order says you’ll be “deemed to have requested to opt out and not to have objected.”
The other dates: claims are due December 28, 2026, and the final approval hearing is January 22, 2027, at 2:00 p.m. The court-appointed administrator is Verita Global. The official site is EquifaxFairCreditReportingSettlement.com, the phone number is 1-888-808-1542, and filing a claim takes the Claim Number and PIN printed on your notice.
Opting out doesn’t give you a case. It keeps the door open, and that’s all it does. The notice’s own chart says that if you opt out, you can pursue your own case, but “Class Counsel will not represent you”. This case is a federal class action in Georgia under the federal rule. Minnesota’s class rule differs in places, but that doesn’t matter here.
Here’s how I’d think about it
You got a notice, and nothing happened to you in spring 2022 that you can point to? File the claim. That’s what the settlement is for.
You got a notice, and you remember a loan denial, a counteroffer at a worse rate, or an adverse-action letter from March or April 2022? Find that paper before November 27. Adverse-action letters, loan estimates, the rate you were quoted next to the rate you actually got. If it’s there, have someone look at it before the deadline, because the day after, the question’s been answered for you.
And if what’s wrong is your credit report today, that’s a separate fight with its own playbook: what to do when the bureau won’t fix it.
The check is the same for everybody. Your loss isn’t.
Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota consumers in Fair Credit Reporting Act cases, including individual accuracy claims against the national credit bureaus, and helps people get reports that are simply wrong corrected through our Credit File Corrections service. If you got an Equifax settlement notice and have paper showing a loss from spring 2022, send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Unopposed Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement, In re Equifax Fair Credit Reporting Act Litigation, No. 1:22-cv-03072-LMM (N.D. Ga. Aug. 17, 2026), ECF No. 361, ¶ 5 (class definition), ¶ 9 (fairness hearing January 22, 2027, at 2:00 p.m.), ¶ 11 (appointment of Verita Global as administrator), ¶¶ 12, 15–16 (notice date and the 60-day opt-out/objection and 90-day claim periods), ¶ 15 (opt-out controls over a simultaneous objection), ¶ 17 (opt-out requirements; no mass or class opt-outs), ¶ 18 (excluded person “will not be a Settlement Class Member”), ¶ 19 (non-opt-outs bound), ¶ 24 (preliminary injunction against other suits on the Released Claims). Class Settlement Agreement and Release, id., ECF No. 359-1 (filed Aug. 12, 2026), §§ II.C, II.I, II.II, II.X, II.Y (definitions of Claim Deadline, Class Transaction, Released Claims, OMS Analysis, OMS Issue), § III.A (class definition), § IV.A–C ($100 million fund; pro rata distribution; no reversion), § V.A (non-admission), § VI.A and D (release of unknown claims; waiver of Cal. Civ. Code § 1542 and similar state laws), § XII.D (class members bound whether or not they file a claim); id., Ex. A (Claim Form signature line), Ex. B (Emailed Class Notice, Option 4). Plaintiffs’ Unopposed Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement, id., ECF No. 359 (filed Aug. 12, 2026), at 3 (release includes waiver of state consumer-protection claims), 8–9 (Equifax’s unconstitutionality and “read and relied on” standing positions, as characterized by class counsel), 11 (equal treatment of claimants), 13 (approximately four million class members) — a party’s filing, not a court finding. Long-form Class Action Notice, In re Equifax Fair Credit Reporting Act Litigation, at 1, 4–9 (deadlines of November 27, 2026 and December 28, 2026; fee request of up to $33,333,333 plus up to $500,000 in expenses; estimated payments of approximately $95 to $280; options chart; opt-out mailing address and “No third-party or company can complete an opt-out for you”; plaintiffs’ description of the 2022 allegations), and the settlement website, EquifaxFairCreditReportingSettlement.com (deadlines and hearing date, as captured Oct. 9, 2026). 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b) (accuracy duty); § 1681n(a)(1)(A), (a)(2), (a)(3) (willful noncompliance; statutory damages of $100 to $1,000; punitive damages; fees); § 1681o(a) (negligent noncompliance; actual damages; fees); § 1681p (jurisdiction and the two-year/five-year limitations periods), Cornell Legal Information Institute. American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538, 554 (1974) (class action suspends limitations as to asserted class members), 561 (suspension only during pendency of class character; 11 days remaining), Caselaw Access Project. 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(1)(A) (reinvestigation duty triggered by consumer dispute) and § 1681g(a)(1)(B) (file disclosure need not include credit scores), Cornell Legal Information Institute. California Public Employees’ Retirement System v. ANZ Securities, Inc., No. 16-373 (U.S. June 26, 2017), slip op. at 6 (time bar running from the defendant’s last culpable act as “close to a dispositive indication” of repose) and 11 (American Pipe tolling does not apply to a statute of repose).
This article is general legal information about federal and Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. It describes a settlement in a case involving other parties; it doesn’t evaluate whether any reader is a class member, whether any reader has a claim, or whether any reader should file, opt out, or object. Deadlines and terms are set by the court’s orders and the official notice, which control over anything here. No outcome is promised or implied.