Servicemembers and family members who are eligible for redress in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Military Lending Act case against FirstCash will receive checks without filing a claim. The settlement administrator says that anyone who does nothing will be sent a payment by paper check in the mail. The one time limit in the process is a 30-day window to pick a different payment method, and it starts only when a redress notice arrives.
The CFPB announced the settlement with FirstCash, Inc. and its subsidiaries on July 11, 2025 and updated the notice on July 22, 2025 after the court entered judgment. The bureau alleged that, starting October 3, 2016, the company charged covered borrowers pawn loan rates above the 36 percent annual cap in the Military Lending Act.
For borrowers, the practical question is what to expect and when. Eligibility is set by the CFPB and FirstCash, not by an application, so no one can file to be added. What a borrower can do is watch the mail for a redress notice, keep it, and decide within 30 days of receiving it whether the default paper check is fine or another method is better.
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How do the redress checks reach borrowers?
The settlement administrator’s website says: “If you do nothing, a payment will be sent by paper check and mailed to you.” Borrowers who want a different method can submit a payment election form online, by mail or by email, all within 30 days of receiving the redress notice. The site does not name the other payment methods.
By mail, the form goes to FirstCash Settlement, Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 25191, Santa Ana, CA 92799. By email it goes to [email protected]. The administrator’s phone number is (833) 417-4914. OpenClassActions reports that there is no claim form and no claim deadline, which matches the administrator’s description of an election form rather than a claim.
How much money is involved?
The CFPB says $5 million was set aside for servicemembers and their family members harmed by the pawn loans, and a separate $4 million civil penalty goes to the bureau’s victims relief fund. OpenClassActions adds that the $5 million is a floor and not a cap on the redress.
No per-borrower amount has been published. The administrator’s site lists no amounts, and OpenClassActions reports that 42,698 loans were flagged. That count is loans, not people, so it does not say how many borrowers are owed or how the $5 million divides among them.
Which borrowers are covered?
The administrator’s site describes the case as one about pawn loans to covered servicemembers and their dependents. The CFPB says the redress is for servicemembers and their family members who were harmed, and it does not describe any public list or lookup. The bureau filed the case on November 12, 2021, in the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, Case No. 4:21-cv-01251-P, and filed an amended complaint on June 21, 2022.
The bureau also alleged that the loan agreements required arbitration of disputes and left out required disclosures, and that the conduct broke a 2013 order against FirstCash’s predecessor, Cash America International. That earlier order was terminated on July 22, 2025.
What does FirstCash have to change?
Under the terms the CFPB describes, the defendants must comply with the Military Lending Act going forward. They also have to either offer a loan product that complies with the law to servicemembers and their families or follow a regulatory safe harbor built to identify borrowers the law protects.
The CFPB’s announcement carries the terms of the order, and the administrator’s site covers only how payments are made. Neither lists a company statement or a named official.
When will the notices go out?
Neither the CFPB nor the administrator has published a mailing date for the redress notices. That is the open piece. A borrower who moved since the loan, or who changed names, has a plain reason to call the administrator at (833) 417-4914 and make sure the address on file is current, because the 30-day election window runs from the day a notice is received.
Waiting on a FirstCash redress notice in the mail?
There is nothing to file in this case, which makes the one date easy to lose. A redress notice that sits in a stack of mail starts a 30-day clock to change the payment method, and a default paper check goes to whatever address is on file.
This story is about a payment that arrives on its own, so the Settlement & Refund Recovery System does not file anything for it. What it offers is the four-date rule for reading a settlement notice and a claim log and payment tracker, so the date a notice arrived, the 30-day election date and the check itself are written in one place.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
