Nobody Has Announced That Wells Fargo’s $56.85 Million Checks Went Out. Our Search Data Suggests They Did: “Stoff Class Action Settlement” Went From Zero to 110 Google Impressions on Our Tracker on August 31 — the Administrator’s Own Deadline. What the Name Means, What the Net Fund Is, and the 90-Day Clock.

Our Wells Fargo CARES Act tracker has ranked for the obvious searches since spring. From August 20 to 30, the query “wells fargo settlement check amount per person” appeared on four of the eleven days, at four or five impressions each, with one stray impression at position 37 and two impressions on August 30. Then the pattern changed. Google Search Console — which reports with a two-day lag, so September 2 is not in yet — shows this for our tracker page:

Impressions are the number of times Google showed our page for that search; they are a floor on how many people searched it, not the total. What is striking is the wording. Nobody learns the name “Stoff” from a news story — coverage, including ours, calls this “the Wells Fargo CARES Act settlement.” The name is on the court notice and, typically, on the check: settlement checks are drawn on a qualified settlement fund, and the fund is usually named for the case. “Stoff class action settlement fund” is the phrase a person types while holding an unfamiliar check and asking whether it is real.

That is an inference, and we label it as one. The official administrator site, read on September 3, still says only: “The Settlement Administrator will mail a check to each Class Member for their pro rata share of the Net Settlement Fund by the end of August 2026.” No “mailed,” no date, no amount. If A.B. Data posts an update, it will be there before it is anywhere else, and we will change this page.

Michael Stoff is the class representative. He sued on June 18, 2020, alleging that Wells Fargo did not comply with federal law when it reported the status of California mortgage accounts in CARES Act forbearance to the credit reporting agencies. The class is Californians with a Wells Fargo-serviced mortgage on California property whose account was current when they entered a CARES Act forbearance on or after March 27, 2020, and whose account was then reported to a consumer reporting agency as “in forbearance” or something similar. Wells Fargo denied wrongdoing and settled for $56,850,000.

Judge Katherine A. Bacal of the San Diego Superior Court held the final fairness hearing on May 15, 2026; the final approval order and judgment was entered on June 10, 2026 (the clerk’s stamp date). One class member’s late opt-out was granted; one objection, from Suzette Craft, was overruled. The separate fee order, from the same hearing, sets the numbers that decide the check size: attorneys’ fees of 30 percent of the Settlement Fund; litigation expenses of $190,000; the administrator’s actual costs, estimated at about $297,000, with any unspent portion going back to the class; a $90,000 service award to Mr. Stoff; and a denial of the service awards requested for people who were not class representatives.

From those orders, our arithmetic: $56,850,000 minus 30 percent ($17,055,000), minus $190,000, minus about $297,000, minus $90,000 leaves roughly $39,218,000, plus whatever interest the fund earned. The notice says each class member receives “an equal pro rata share” — the net divided by the number of class members, no claim form, no proof, the same amount for everyone.

The number of class members is not in the notice, the FAQ, the preliminary-approval order, the final order or the fee order. Independent trackers have guessed $100 to $150 per person, and so did we; that range simply corresponds to a class of about 260,000 to 390,000 people. Correction (September 30, 2026): the court file holds a figure we had missed. In the tentative ruling for the December 5, 2025 preliminary-approval hearing, class counsel estimated about $255 per class member plus accrued interest if all requested fees and expenses were granted; the court later awarded the requested 30% fee. At $255, the net implies roughly 154,000 class members (our arithmetic), close to the first row of this table. The administrator still has not published a check amount. Here is what the check is at each class size:

If you have a check in hand, you can run this backwards: $39.2 million divided by your amount is, roughly, how many Californians got one. There is also a second round. Money left after the first distribution — uncashed checks, the unspent administration budget — is “distributed evenly to Class Members who cashed a previous Settlement check,” unless that would be under $5 each — in that case, and for anything still left 90 days after the second distribution, the money goes to the non-profit Credit Builders Alliance.

The notice’s sentence is unambiguous: “Class Members will have 90 days to cash the Settlement Share checks, after which the checks will be voided.” A check dated August 28 is void around November 26.

• You have a check that says Stoff, CARES Act Litigation or A.B. Data. It is this settlement. Deposit it now; do not wait to “see if it clears” — depositing is how you find out.
• Nothing has come, and you moved since 2020. Checks go to the address in Wells Fargo’s servicing records. USPS forwarding orders lapse after a year, so a 2021 move will not forward a 2026 check. Call A.B. Data at 1-877-307-7268, email info@CaresActLitigation.com, or write to P.O. Box 173008, Milwaukee, WI 53217, with your old and new addresses and the property address.
• You got a Wells Fargo check that is not this one. There was a different, larger Wells Fargo forbearance settlement — $185 million, for mortgages placed into COVID-19 forbearance without consent — approved in December 2024, with checks that began going out in March 2025, according to Kiplinger. That case was not limited to California and has already paid. Stoff is California-only; its administrator’s deadline was the end of August.

Nobody legitimate will ask for a fee, a card number or a login to “release” a settlement check. The administrator already has your address; that is the whole point of an automatic settlement.