ATM Class Action Lawsuit: Eligibility, Payout, and Timeline

Payouts from an ATM class action lawsuit usually land between $20 and $50 per person, with roughly $35 being a realistic benchmark based on recent cases. The exact amount depends on the size of the settlement fund, how many people file claims, and how many qualifying transactions you made. The largest current case is a $197.5 million settlement against Visa and Mastercard over inflated ATM access fees, with a companion $66.74 million settlement covering Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo. Digital payments in the Visa/Mastercard case began going out in April 2026.¹

Who Qualifies as a Class Member

Every settlement defines its class narrowly, so eligibility comes down to specific dates and specific transactions. For the Visa and Mastercard settlement, the class includes anyone who paid an unreimbursed ATM surcharge for an out-of-network transaction using a U.S.-issued card at a U.S. ATM from October 1, 2007, through the date of preliminary approval.¹ If you used an ATM outside your bank’s network during that window and paid a fee for it, you were almost certainly in the class.

One trap catches people who have collected before. If you already received money from an earlier, related settlement, you may be excluded from a later one covering similar claims. In the Bank of America ATM fee litigation, the court specifically carved out people who had received payment through a prior settlement when it redefined the class.²

You’ll usually find out you qualify in one of three ways: a mailed notice from the settlement administrator using records from the banks involved, a media or online notice, or a settlement website. For the ATM surcharge case, that site is atmclassaction.com, which publishes the full notice, claim forms, and deadlines.¹

How to File a Claim

Filing is quick but strictly deadline-driven. The official claim form lives on the settlement administrator’s website and is sometimes included with mailed notices. The form asks for your name, address, and contact details. Depending on the settlement, it may also ask for your bank account number, the ATM transactions you want to claim on, or a sworn statement that you were charged the fees at issue.¹

Most settlements accept online submissions through the administrator’s portal. Some also accept paper claims by mail. Either way, the form must arrive before the deadline. Miss it and you lose your right to any payment from that settlement. Courts rarely grant extensions to individual claimants who forgot or didn’t notice, so treat the date on the notice the way you’d treat a bill.

You generally don’t need receipts or old bank statements. A sworn statement on the claim form that you paid the fees is often enough. If the settlement does require documentation and you can’t dig up the records yourself, contact the administrator; they can sometimes verify eligibility through bank records already produced during the litigation.

What Your Check Will Actually Look Like

The single biggest factor is claim volume. A $100 million fund split among 500,000 claimants produces very different checks than the same fund split among 5 million, and ATM cases tend to have enormous classes because so many people use ATMs. Per-person amounts get compressed quickly.

Your individual share also depends on how much harm you can show. Some settlements pay every claimant the same flat amount. Others calculate proportional shares based on the number of qualifying transactions or the total surcharges you paid during the class period. Frequent out-of-network ATM users can end up with more than someone who made one or two transactions.

Attorney fees and administrative costs come off the top before anyone gets paid. Courts typically approve attorney fees between 20% and 45% of the total fund. Add in the cost of mailing notices, processing claims, and cutting checks, and the pool available for distribution shrinks. A $197.5 million fund might have only around $120 million left for class members after those deductions.

The pattern across recent ATM cases is consistent. Total settlement figures sound impressive, but individual checks tend to be modest. The $35-per-person estimate from a Bank of America restraint fee case is a fair benchmark for what most claimants receive.

How Long Until You Get Paid

After the claim deadline passes, the administrator reviews submissions and the court holds a final approval hearing, often several months later. If anyone objects to the settlement, the judge resolves those objections before granting final approval, which adds more time.

Once the court signs off, the administrator processes approved claims and issues payments by check or, increasingly, digitally. The Visa and Mastercard ATM surcharge settlement, for example, announced digital payments beginning in April 2026.¹ From claim submission to money in hand, six months to over a year is normal. Cases with appeals can stretch further.

Cash your check promptly when it arrives. Settlement checks typically expire after 90 to 180 days. If yours goes stale, the money may be redistributed to other claimants, donated to a consumer-focused charity, or in some cases returned to the defendant. After enough time, uncashed funds can be turned over to the state as unclaimed property.

What Happens If You Do Nothing

If you qualify and never file, you get nothing. Class action settlements don’t send money automatically. You have to affirmatively submit a claim by the deadline, and if you don’t, your share goes back into the pool.

That unclaimed money ends up in several places depending on the settlement. Some cases redistribute leftover funds proportionally among people who did file, slightly boosting everyone else’s check. Others direct unclaimed money to consumer-focused charities or nonprofit organizations through a cy pres distribution. In some cases, unclaimed money reverts to the defendant. Funds deposited with a federal court that remain unclaimed for five years can be turned over to the U.S. Treasury.

Even a small expected payout is worth the few minutes it takes to file. It costs nothing, and low participation rates make future settlements a cheaper way for defendants to resolve the same kinds of practices.

Taxes on Your Payout

Most ATM class action payouts are taxable. Under federal tax law, income from any source counts as gross income unless a specific exclusion applies, and the main exclusion people hope applies, damages for personal physical injury, doesn’t cover ATM fee refunds.³ In practice, the amounts are small enough that the tax impact is negligible. If you receive a 1099 from the administrator, report the amount on your return; the IRS gets a copy of that 1099 too.

1
ATM Surcharge Class Action Lawsuit. ATM Surcharge Class Action Lawsuit
2
Bloomberg Law. Bank of America Gets Narrower Class in Dispute Over ATM Fees
3
Internal Revenue Service. Tax Implications of Settlements and Judgments