The AT&T data-breach settlement drew 4,918,073 claims, and the fraud-screening firm working for the settlement flagged 804,381 of them as fraudulent, according to the OpenClassActions report on the final approval. The court granted final approval on October 2, 2026, but no payment date has been announced.
The firm, Covalynt, was retained through the settlement administrator, Kroll Settlement Administration, at the parties’ request. The report says the judge found its methods offered reasonable protection against fraud, and that people whose claims were flagged have a way to challenge a mistaken finding.
For anyone who filed, the questions are whether the claim was one of the approved ones and when money would arrive. About 3.92 million claims were approved: 1,654,046 in Tier 1, 687,859 in Tier 2 and 1,582,248 in Tier 3. Another 1,099,732 were rejected for reasons that include late, duplicate, fraudulent, released, withdrawn or ineligible-business filings, and the 804,381 flagged as fraudulent are part of that rejected group, not on top of it. A claimant who was flagged receives an email with a link to a validation form, which has to be printed, signed and mailed.
Roughly 16 percent of the claims filed were flagged as fraudulent, and anyone caught in that group has a form to mail and a date to watch. The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes a claim log and payment tracker, so the validation form, the November 2 appeal deadline and the eventual payment date sit in one record.
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What the claim counts say
The numbers, as reported, are these:
- 4,918,073 claims filed, 4,163,810 of them online and 754,263 by mail.
- 1,099,732 claims rejected.
- 804,381 claims flagged as fraudulent, about 16 percent of those filed.
- About 3.92 million claims approved.
The flagged figure is a screening result from Covalynt, not a finding by a court that any person committed fraud. That distinction matters for a household that filed honestly and got a validation email: being flagged is a request for more proof, and the process is designed to let a real claimant clear it.
What the payments are expected to be
The settlement fund totals $177 million, split into a $149 million fund for the first AT&T incident and a $28 million fund for the second. Kroll’s estimates, which are not guaranteed, are about $39 to $40 for Tier 1 (the first incident, with a Social Security number exposed), about $7.50 to $8.10 for Tier 2 (the first incident, no Social Security number) and about $6.50 to $7.10 for Tier 3 (the second incident, call records). Those are estimates that depend on how many claims finally stand.
The appeal window and the payment date
The appeal deadline is November 2, 2026. If no appeal is filed, the report says the settlement’s effective date would be about November 12 and payments would be due by about January 11, 2027. The report adds that the appeal date could move to about March 31, 2027 if no separate final judgment is entered, which would push payment back too.
The settlement website says benefits will be paid only after the court approves the settlement and any appeals are resolved. It gives no payment date and no cash amounts of its own. Payment messages come from Kroll through the official settlement site.
Checking a claim and tracking the payment window
The free route is the official settlement site, telecomdatasettlement.com. It has no claim-status lookup, but it offers a contact form, a form to resend a class member ID and a phone line, (833) 890-4930. Kroll can also be written to at AT&T Data Incident Settlement, c/o Kroll Settlement Administration LLC, P.O. Box 5324, New York, NY 10150-5324. The claim deadline itself closed on December 18, 2025.
Anyone who filed should look through email, including the spam folder, for a message about a validation form, since the form has to be printed, signed and mailed. The class member ID from the original notice is the key to every contact, so it is worth saving in a safe place now.
Then mark two dates: November 2 for the appeal deadline and the weeks after November 12 for the earliest possible payment window. OpenClassActions says it cannot look up a claim or confirm a payment amount, so only Kroll and the settlement site can say where a particular claim stands.
Four million approved claims and one appeal deadline
With 3.92 million approved claims waiting on an appeal deadline of November 2 and a payment date that has not been set, the risk for an individual household is losing track of the notice, the class member ID and the validation form. The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes a claim log and payment tracker for keeping each of those with its date.
LOG THE AT&T APPEAL DEADLINE AND PAYMENT DATE IN A CLAIM TRACKER →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
