Equifax Customers Who Disputed a Hard Inquiry Since Aug. 31, 2021 Have Until Nov. 29 to Claim an Estimated $100 From a $30 Million Settlement

Four weeks are left to file a claim in the $30 million Equifax hard-inquiry settlement. The deadline is Sunday, Nov. 29, and the estimated payment for the broadest group of eligible people, anyone who disputed a hard inquiry with Equifax from Aug. 31, 2021 through March 27, 2026, is about $100. Nov. 29 is also four weeks to the day from today, Nov. 1, so there is little slack for a household that has not yet found its settlement notice.

The case is Hines v. Equifax Information Services LLC, No. 1:19-cv-06701, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Every dollar figure below is an estimate, because payments are shared out pro rata after costs and depend on how many valid claims come in.

Three Groups, Three Estimates: $100, $300 and $400

The settlement covers about 3 million people in three overlapping groups, according to Top Class Actions. The General Dispute Group is the broadest: people whose records show Equifax received a hard-inquiry dispute, by any method, between Aug. 31, 2021 and March 27, 2026. Its estimated payment is about $100.

The Certified Group is narrower. It includes people who mailed Equifax a dispute of a hard inquiry between Oct. 4, 2016 and March 27, 2026, whose dispute was coded “not mine” or “unauthorized,” and who received a document containing “Cons Comm 664.” The estimate there is about $300, and it applies to roughly 1 million people.

The New York subclass is a subset of the Certified Group: people with a New York address who received that document between Nov. 27, 2017 and Sept. 10, 2024. The estimate is about $400, for roughly 35,000 people. All three figures are listed as estimates that may turn out lower or higher, according to Open Class Actions.

The settlement agreement filed with the court explains the ratio. It assigns points: 1 point for the General Dispute Group and other members, 3 points for the Certified Group, and 4 points for members of both the Certified Group and the New York subclass. Each claimant’s share is their points divided by the total points of all valid claimants, according to the settlement agreement posted by ClassAction.org. At $100 a point, 1, 3 and 4 points match the $100, $300 and $400 estimates.

Membership is based on Equifax’s own records. The claim number and PIN printed on the notice show which group a person is in, according to Open Class Actions.

Which Date Matters Depends on What a Claimant Wants

Nov. 29 is the claim deadline, and it applies to anyone who wants a payment. Paper claims can be mailed to Hines v. Equifax, c/o Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 16, West Point, PA 19486, according to ClaimDepot, which listed the case as open when it was last updated on Oct. 31. The online form is on the settlement website, EquifaxDisputeClassAction.com, and requires the claim number and PIN from the notice.

Two earlier dates matter for people who want to leave the case or object. Written exclusion requests and objections must reach the administrator by Nov. 20. A member who excludes themselves receives no payment but keeps the right to sue Equifax individually. A notice of intent to appear at the hearing must be received by Nov. 26, according to Open Class Actions.

The final approval hearing is set for Dec. 10, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. in Brooklyn, before Magistrate Judge Joseph A. Marutollo, and it may be moved or held virtually. The court granted preliminary approval on Aug. 5, 2026, according to ClassAction.org.

Checks do not go out until after final approval and any appeals, and no payment date has been announced. Payments can be made by check or an electronic method. If money remains after the first round, members who cashed their initial payment may receive a second payment of at least $10, according to Top Class Actions.

The settlement agreement names Continental DataLogix, LLC as the settlement administrator. The deadlines here come from the court-filed agreement and from claim trackers that reproduce the notice.

A $30 Million Fund, With Up to $10.32 Million Reserved for Lawyers and Awards

The fund pays for more than member checks. Open Class Actions lists requested maximums of $10 million in attorneys’ fees, $260,000 in litigation expenses and $60,000 in total service awards, along with administration costs. A calculation from those figures: $30 million minus $10 million, $260,000 and $60,000 leaves about $19.68 million, before notice and administration costs are taken out. Those are caps on what class counsel may request, and the judge decides what is approved.

The agreement also says the fund is paid in two installments, a first $1.5 million for notice and administration and the remaining $28.5 million after the settlement takes effect, with no money reverting to Equifax. Service awards are capped at $20,000 each for Hines and Rivera and $10,000 each for Neubauer and Oblack.

The lawsuits claimed that Equifax did not reasonably investigate disputes of credit file inquiries or remove the disputed inquiries. The plaintiffs pointed to letters stating that “Inquiries are a factual record of file access,” and they alleged violations of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and similar New York and New Jersey laws, according to ClassAction.org. Equifax has not admitted wrongdoing.

Filing is free. A claimant must sign under penalty of perjury and check at least one statement: that the disputed inquiry caused economic loss, a privacy harm or another harm, or that a company denied credit based in part on it, according to Open Class Actions. The same page cautions that no one should pay fees or give bank logins or a full Social Security number to file, and that a notice received by email should be verified by typing the official website address directly.

This is a separate case from Equifax’s credit-score settlement. A different court order, signed Aug. 17, 2026 in the Northern District of Georgia, preliminarily approved a settlement over scores affected by the “OMS Issue,” with a fairness hearing set for Jan. 22, 2027, and Verita Global as administrator, according to the court’s preliminary approval order. Eligibility for each settlement is independent.

Readers weighing both can compare the details in the Tonic Edit’s report on Equifax’s $100 million credit score settlement, and another claim deadline also falls on Nov. 29 for Navy Federal members whose fraud disputes were denied.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Tyler Lahti – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons