Safe Fleet Data Breach Settlement: $50 With No Proof or Up to $2,500 With Receipts — No Cap on the Total, but the Approval Hearing Is November 2, a Month Before the December 2, 2026 Claim Deadline

If you got a notice about the Safe Fleet data incident, you can claim money from this settlement, and the amount is fixed rather than estimated. The official FAQ offers two cash options, and you pick one. With receipts: “If you incurred actual, documented out-of-pocket losses due to the Data Incident, you can get back up to $2,500.00. The losses must have occurred between April 13, 2024, and December 2, 2026.” Without anything: “you may claim a one-time $50.00 cash payment. You do not have to provide any proof or explanation to claim this payment.” On top of either, every class member can enroll in two years of CyEx Financial Shield Complete credit monitoring with $1 million of financial fraud insurance; the agreement says a class member “may claim both the Alternative Cash Payment and Credit Monitoring Services.”

What makes this one different from most data breach settlements we track is the money structure. There is no settlement fund to divide. Paragraph 66 of the settlement agreement says the companies “will pay for or cause to be paid all timely and any Valid Claim (i.e., there is no aggregate cap on the amount that Defendants will pay).” Lawyers’ fees — class counsel will ask for $250,000 including costs — and $2,000 service awards for each of the two named plaintiffs are paid by the companies “separate from” the class benefits and the administration costs. So the $50 is $50, whether a hundred people claim it or thousands. The catch is the size of the group: this is a small breach. The complaint alleges that the companies “injured at least 7,478 persons,” and, on information and belief, that those people include current and former employees.

The court defined the class as “All individuals residing in the United States whose Private Information may have been impacted in the Data Incident affecting Defendants on or around April 13, 2024, including all those who received notice of the Data Incident.” The settlement site adds: “If you received notice, Safe Fleet’s records indicate that you are a Settlement Class Member.” According to the FAQ, Safe Fleet became aware of suspicious activity on or about April 13, 2024, and found that an unauthorized actor had accessed or taken files containing names together with items such as addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license and passport numbers, taxpayer IDs, financial account and payment card information, health insurance and medical information. The complaint alleges that notification letters did not go out until July 18, 2025 — “a full 461 days after the Data Breach began.” That is an allegation; Safe Fleet and Clarience deny wrongdoing, and the court has not decided who is right.

No one will be paid in 2026. The FAQ is explicit that “Settlement payments cannot be distributed if there are any appeals,” and the agreement sets the order of events: payments come only “after the Effective Date, and after final determinations have been made with respect to all Claims submitted during the Claims Period.” Because the claim deadline (December 2) falls a month after the approval hearing (November 2), every claim has to be reviewed after December 2 before the companies fund payments — within the later of 45 days of the administrator’s accounting or 20 days after the Effective Date. By our reading that puts the first payments in 2027 at the earliest, and later if anyone objects and appeals. You choose how to be paid on the claim form: PayPal, Venmo, Zelle or a physical check. Checks expire after 90 days; a reissued check or electronic payment is good for 60 days.

Claim deadline: December 2, 2026. Online is fastest: the claim form at SafeFleetDataSettlement.com opens with a login page, so keep your notice at hand; if you no longer have the code from it, the FAQ says to contact the administrator. Paper forms can be downloaded or requested by phone and mailed to Safe Fleet Data Incident Settlement, c/o Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 25226, Santa Ana, CA 92799-9958. One inconsistency to plan around: the FAQ says a mailed form must be “postmarked no later than December 2, 2026,” but the claim form itself also says “Claims must be received by December 2, 2026.” Do not mail on the last day — file online or mail well ahead. The claim form also allows an emailed image of the completed form to info@SafeFleetDataSettlement.com.

If you claim losses: the agreement lists, as examples, losses from fraud or identity theft, professional fees, costs of freezing or unfreezing credit, credit monitoring bought after the breach notice, and “notary, fax, postage, copying, mileage, and long-distance telephone charges.” You need third-party proof such as bank statements or receipts; your own notes or declarations can explain but “are not enough to make a valid claim.” Expenses already reimbursed — including through the monitoring product offered in Safe Fleet’s original letter — do not count, and there is no payment for emotional distress. If the administrator sends a deficiency notice, you have until the claim deadline or 15 days after the notice, whichever is later, to fix it.

Opt-out and objection deadline: November 2, 2026. An exclusion request must be “postmarked or emailed by November 2, 2026” and keeps your right to sue on your own; it also means no money. An objection must be filed in writing with the court and mailed to both sides’ lawyers and the administrator. Final approval hearing: November 2, 2026, at 10:30 a.m. Central, Division I courtroom, 2501 W. Mechanic St., Harrisonville, MO 64701. Judge Lett’s July 29 order also says the hearing “shall be scheduled no earlier than one hundred twenty (120) days after entry of this Order” — November 2 is 96 days after July 29, by our count — so check the official site before you travel; the date could move. Doing nothing means no payment and giving up your claims.

Yes. The settlement was approved for notice by a real court: Judge Stacey J. Lett’s order, filed in the Circuit Court of Cass County on July 30, 2026, preliminarily certifies the class and states “Simpluris is appointed as the Settlement Administrator.” The settlement notices went out by mail with a notification date of September 3, 2026. You may have received two different letters: the site notes that “You may have received a previous notice directly from Safe Fleet” — the 2025 breach notification — while the settlement notice comes from the administrator.

How do you know if a data breach letter is real? Check it against the contact details the court-approved site publishes, not the ones in a message: website SafeFleetDataSettlement.com; phone (855) 256-5304, toll free and 24/7; email info@SafeFleetDataSettlement.com; mail P.O. Box 25226, Santa Ana, CA 92799-9958. The case number is 26CA-CC0013 and the names on it are Ferry et al. v. Safe Fleet Holdings, LLC and Clarience Technologies, LLC. Claiming costs nothing — the FAQ says “You will not be charged for Class Counsel’s services,” and fees are paid by the companies. The claim form asks for your PayPal email, Venmo or Zelle phone number only so the payment can be sent. If anything looks off, call the administrator’s number from the site, not a number in the message.

Most data breach settlements in 2026 put a fixed sum into a fund and split it, so the advertised cash amount is only an estimate that falls as more people claim. This one runs on a claims-paid model: the companies pay every valid claim, there is no fund to run dry, and the fees come out of the companies’ pockets rather than the class’s. The trade-off is a modest flat amount and a late payday. The Cass County complaint was filed on May 8, 2026 (Safe Fleet is headquartered there according to the complaint), but the dispute is older: according to the settlement agreement, Brian Ferry first sued in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri on July 30, 2025, and the federal cases were consolidated on October 17, 2025 before the parties settled after a March 5, 2026 mediation. The complaint alleges negligence, negligence per se, breach of implied contract, invasion of privacy, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty and declaratory judgment. Class counsel are Raina C. Borrelli of Strauss Borrelli PLLC, Grayson Wells of Stranch, Jennings & Garvey and Leigh S. Montgomery of Ellzey, Kherkher, Sanford & Montgomery; the companies are represented by Mullen Coughlin.

If you searched for the biggest data breaches in history, this case will not help: it covers one incident involving at least 7,478 people, according to the complaint, and pays only people in that group. As of October 12, 2026, the settlement site does not publish how many claims have been filed, and we could not check the Missouri state docket for the motion for final approval, which the order required at least 45 days before the hearing. We will update this page after the November 2 hearing. For an estimate of what documented losses could be worth in other breach cases, see our calculator below.