Verizon Settlement: Paid, Real Payout Was $2.37 to $14

At a glance

Status

Paid out

Defendant

Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless

Settlement fund

$100,000,000

Claim deadline

April 15, 2024

No-proof cash option

Yes — No documentation required: an initial minimum allocated amount of $15.00 per account, plus $1.00 for each month the account received postpaid wireless/data service and was charged and paid an Administrative Charge and/or Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge between January 1, 2016 and the date of the Settlement Agreement, up to a maximum initial allocated amount of $100.00 -- paid via prepaid Mastercard, reduced pro rata if claims exceed the net settlement fund

Estimated payout

No documentation required: an initial minimum allocated amount of $15.00 per account, plus $1.00 for each month the account received postpaid wireless/data service and was charged and paid an Administrative Charge and/or Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge between January 1, 2016 and the date of the Settlement Agreement, up to a maximum initial allocated amount of $100.00 -- paid via prepaid Mastercard, reduced pro rata if claims exceed the net settlement fund

Official site

www.verizonadministrativechargesettlement.com

Court

Superior Court of New Jersey, Middlesex County (Law Division)

Case number

MID-L-6360-23

Last verified July 16, 2026

Key dates

Milestone	Date	What it means
Claim deadline	April 15, 2024(passed)	Last day to file for a payment
Opt-out (exclusion) deadline	February 20, 2024(passed)	Last day to leave the settlement and keep the right to sue
Objection deadline	February 26, 2024(passed)	Last day to object to the terms
Final approval hearing	March 22, 2024(passed)	When the judge decides whether to approve the settlement
Expected payout	Not yet scheduled	Payments are not sent until after final approval and any appeals

Where to file

The only place to file is the official settlement website:

Verify on the official site

www.verizonadministrativechargesettlement.com

Filing is free. No legitimate settlement charges a fee to file a claim.

You cannot file on RecordingLaw.com. We are an independent publisher, not the settlement administrator, and we are not affiliated with any court, agency, or defendant.

What Verizon Actually Settled (It Is Not a Data Breach)

Verizon's $100 million settlement is not about a data breach. It resolves Esposito v. Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless, a lawsuit over the 'Administrative Charge' and 'Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge' that Verizon added to postpaid wireless and data bills. The claim was that Verizon advertised one price, then billed a separate monthly fee on top of it.

The case was filed and settled in New Jersey state court, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Middlesex County, not federal court like most of the breach settlements tracked on this site. The case number is MID-L-6360-23. As of July 2026, the settlement is paid: the claim window is closed and money has already gone out to class members. A related appellate ruling in December 2025 sent some opt-out questions back to the trial court, but it concerned who validly opted out, not the claims process (see below).

Where This Settlement Stands Right Now: Paid and Closed

As of July 2026, there is nothing left to file. The claim deadline was April 15, 2024. The fairness (final approval) hearing, first scheduled for March 22, 2024, was held on April 26, 2024, and the court approved the settlement.

The settlement became effective on September 20, 2024. Verizon then began distributing payments around January 6, 2025, to claimants who filed on time, in the form of prepaid Mastercards.

If you filed a valid claim before the April 15, 2024 deadline, you should have already received a card. If you never filed, that window closed more than two years ago, and there is no way to reopen it now.

One piece of the case did continue on appeal. On December 16, 2025, the New Jersey Appellate Division (Docket No. A-2649-23) decided Verizon's cross-appeal from two March 20, 2024 trial court orders about an outside attorney who advertised to class members and used a website to collect opt-outs from the settlement and retainer agreements. The panel vacated those two orders and remanded for further proceedings, including on whether opt-outs gathered through that website were valid. The attorney's own appeal, from the denial of his motion to intervene, was dismissed by stipulation.

That ruling reviewed only those orders, not the settlement's approval, and it does not create a new claim window. It matters mainly to people who opted out through that attorney's website, whose status was sent back to the trial court.

Who Was in the Class

You may have been a class member if you were a current or former individual consumer with a Verizon postpaid wireless or data plan, and your account was charged and paid an Administrative Charge or an Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge between January 1, 2016 and November 8, 2023. This was a consumer class; business accounts were not included.

How Much People Actually Got: the Real Number, Not the Formula

Start with the number that matters more than the settlement's own formula: most people who filed a valid claim received somewhere between $2.37 and $14. Some cards were as low as $2.37. That is far below the $15 to $100 range the settlement notice originally described when claims opened in early 2024.

The formula itself promised an initial allocated amount of $15 per account, plus $1 for each month the account was charged and paid the fee, up to a maximum of $100. No documentation was ever required to claim it.

It did not work out that way for most claimants. Class counsel asked the court to award up to $33.3 million, roughly a third of the $100 million fund, in attorneys' fees and costs, which come out of the fund before class members are paid. More valid claims came in than the formula anticipated. The settlement's own pro-rata reduction clause then cut every individual payment proportionally so the remaining fund could stretch across every claim, and that reduction is what took some $15 'minimum' payments down to $2.37.

If your card was for less than $15, that was not a mistake. It was the built-in reduction mechanism working as designed once claim volume outran the money available.

Filing Is Closed; No Proof Was Ever Needed

For the record, this settlement never required documentation of anything. Filing was self-attestation only, through the official site, verizonadministrativechargesettlement.com, and that window closed April 15, 2024. There is no legitimate way to submit a late claim for this settlement now.

Do Not Confuse This With Two Other Verizon-Family Matters

'Verizon settlement' search results turn up at least three unrelated matters, and it is easy to mix them up because TracFone and Total Wireless are Verizon-owned brands.

The TracFone data breach settlement is a separate, already-paid matter. Barcomb v. TracFone Wireless, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, resolves a data breach TracFone disclosed in December 2021, and it covers TracFone, Straight Talk, Simple Mobile, Net10 Wireless, and Total Wireless customers. As of July 2026, it is also paid: approved-claim payments went out April 9, 2026, and uncashed checks became void after July 8, 2026, a deadline that has already passed. Its payout ran up to $3,250 for documented ordinary losses and up to $50,000 for extraordinary losses, plus three years of credit monitoring, a different structure entirely from the flat fee formula above. Separately, and not a consumer claims process at all, TracFone also paid a $16,000,000 civil penalty to the Federal Communications Commission over those same breaches; that money went to the government, not to customers.

The Total Wireless / Veriff data breach has no settlement and no claim form, as of July 2026. Three federal class actions were filed in early 2026 over a breach involving Veriff, an identity-verification vendor Total Wireless used, detected around December 2025 and reportedly affecting roughly 8,583 customers. No class has been certified, no settlement exists, and there is no official claims site. If you see an ad, email, or text offering to file a 'claim' for a Total Wireless or Veriff breach right now, treat it as a likely scam. There is nothing legitimate to file a claim for yet.

Protect Yourself Either Way

This settlement was about an undisclosed fee, not stolen data, so it does not carry the identity-theft risk a true breach does. But if you are also a TracFone, Straight Talk, or Total Wireless customer and are unsure which of these three matters actually affects you, the safest move is the same one that protects you against any of them: a free credit freeze at all three major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. It blocks new credit from being opened in your name, and federal law makes it free. Our guide to freezing your credit after a data breach walks through all three, step by step.

If you already suspect misuse of your information, not just exposure, IdentityTheft.gov, the FTC's free recovery site, builds a personalized recovery plan. Watch your accounts, and be skeptical of anyone contacting you asking for payment or your Social Security number to 'verify' a Verizon, TracFone, or Total Wireless claim.

More Open and Closed Settlements

Verizon, TracFone, and dozens of other companies show up on our data breach settlement tracker, which lists what we have verified as open, closed, or paid.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Verizon administrative charge settlement still open?

No. As of July 2026, the Verizon Administrative Charge Settlement is closed and paid. The claim deadline was April 15, 2024, and no new claims can be filed.

Did the Verizon settlement actually pay out?

Yes. The Verizon Administrative Charge Settlement paid claimants who filed on time starting around January 6, 2025, after the settlement became effective September 20, 2024.

How much did people actually get from the Verizon settlement?

Most valid claimants received between $2.37 and $14, not the $15 to $100 the settlement formula described. Attorneys' fees and a pro-rata reduction, triggered because filed claims exceeded projections, pushed individual payments below the advertised minimum.

Why did I get less than the promised $15 minimum from the Verizon settlement?

Because the settlement payout was never a guaranteed flat amount. It was a pro-rata share of a fixed fund that also had to cover the attorneys' fees and costs the court awarded from it, and once claim volume outran the fund, every payment, including the stated $15 minimum, was reduced proportionally.

Is this the same as the TracFone data breach settlement?

No. The TracFone data breach settlement is a separate matter, Barcomb v. TracFone Wireless, over a 2021 data breach. It is also already paid, with approved-claim payments issued April 9, 2026, but it is a different case with a different payout structure.

Can I still file a claim for the Total Wireless or Veriff data breach?

No, because there is nothing to file yet. As of July 2026, the Total Wireless/Veriff data breach is still in early litigation with no settlement and no claim form. Treat any site or message offering to file a claim for it as a likely scam.

Was the Verizon administrative charge settlement about a data breach?

No. It resolved allegations that Verizon charged an undisclosed monthly fee, the Administrative Charge, on top of advertised postpaid plan prices. It did not involve stolen or exposed personal data.

What court decided the Verizon settlement?

The Superior Court of New Jersey, Middlesex County, case number MID-L-6360-23, not a federal court, which is unusual among the settlements tracked on this site.

Do I need to do anything now that the Verizon settlement has paid out?

No action is needed with the settlement itself, since filing closed in April 2024. If identity theft is a general worry, a free credit freeze at all three credit bureaus is the strongest available protection regardless of this settlement.