Your piece of T-Mobile's $350 million data breach settlement will come later than expected
Although T-Mobile customers in desperate need of some cash this month seemingly received great news a little while ago, your smile probably turned upside down as the weeks went by and that (possibly disappointing but still helpful) check didn't come.
As it turns out, an "unexpected delay" has hit (presumably, at the last minute) the distribution of settlement payments arising from a 2021 data breach. This was initially scheduled to happen in "April 2025" (which is obviously ending very soon), but is now "expected" to "begin in May 2025", which doesn't sound that bad.
Still, the wait has clearly already been long and painful for the roughly 76 million US residents impacted by the worst cybersecurity incident in T-Mo's history, so I can definitely understand if each new day without your well-deserved slice of a juicy $350 million pie will feel like torture.
The whole situation is undoubtedly made worse by the fact that no individual T-Mobile user can know exactly how much money they'll receive beforehand. While a basic division operation might suggest you're looking at a payment of less than 5 bucks, the final value of your check can jump considerably in a couple of different scenarios.
First, no one knows how many of those 76 million people actually went to the trouble of filing a claim when similar class action settlements yielded such modest payments in the past. Naturally, if that number was significantly lower than 76 million, your piece of the $350 million pool could end up looking a lot handsomer.
Even more importantly, if you were one of the (far too) many "Un-carrier" customers who had to spend money to "avoid or recover from fraud or identity theft that you believe was fairly traceable to the T-Mobile Data Breach" (and provided the necessary documentation to support that claim in due time), you can qualify for up to $25,000. That's right, 25 big ones could be headed your way at some point next month. Just think about how many price hikes you could cover with such a fat check.
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