Only 16,778 of About 657,845 People Had Claimed From the $5.3 Million SitusAMC Settlement by September 14 — While Lawyers Ask for $1.77 Million. The $75 Estimate “May Be Higher or Lower.” Claim Deadline November 6, 2026.

If you got a postcard about the November 2025 SitusAMC data incident, you are on the class list and can file until November 6, 2026. The court papers filed on October 2, 2026 show how few people have done so. In the words of the administrator, Simpluris: “As of September 14, 2026, Simpluris has received 16,778 Claim Form submissions.” The final class list holds 657,845 unique people, so by our arithmetic about 2.6 percent of the class had claimed a month after the postcards went out on August 13. Every one of those claims came in online.

That number matters because the main cash benefit is not a fixed check. The settlement agreement calls the no-receipts Flat Cash payment “a pro rata amount of the Net Settlement Fund” and says: “The current estimate for Cash Payment B – Flat Cash is $75, but the amount may be higher or lower depending upon the number of Valid Claims submitted for Cash Payments.” Fewer claims means a bigger share for each claimant. The claim deadline is November 6, 2026, online or postmarked, and claims will keep arriving until then — the September count is not the final one, and the administrator has said it will file a supplemental declaration with updated numbers before the hearing.

The benefits have not changed since our first report on the settlement. The $5,300,000 fund pays, in this order: credit monitoring, documented losses up to $5,000 per person, a California Statutory Payment of $50 for people who lived in California between November 12 and November 22, 2025, and finally the Flat Cash shares from whatever remains. Everyone on the list also gets one year of CyEx Financial Shield Complete credit monitoring, with up to $1,000,000 in identity theft insurance, through the code printed on the postcard — no claim needed.

The September 14 breakdown: 16,757 claims approved for Flat Cash, 3,431 for the California payment, and 60 for documented losses totaling $167,865.59. Only 11 of those loss claims had been approved, for $1,535.92 together; the other 49 will get deficiency letters giving them a chance to fix the problem. Under the agreement, a loss claim that is not cured is converted to Flat Cash, not thrown out.

What a Flat Cash share will actually be cannot be computed yet. The fund first pays administration and monitoring costs — the proposed final order leaves the administration figure blank — and the fees the court awards. Our rough ceiling: if the judge grants the full fee, cost and service-award requests, $3,487,600.08 would remain before administration and monitoring costs; after the California and approved loss payments, divided among the September count of Flat Cash claims, that is just under $198 each. Real costs and late claims will pull that down, possibly a lot. It is an upper bound, not a forecast.

Nothing is paid before final approval. SitusAMC pays the remaining $5,000,000 within ten days after the “Effective Date,” which comes only after the time for appeals has run out, and the administrator must distribute benefits “no later than sixty (60) days after the Effective Date, or as soon as reasonably practicable thereafter.” If Judge Liman approves the deal at the November 11, 2026 hearing and nobody appeals, that schedule sets only an outer limit of 60 days after the Effective Date, so the timing depends on when the appeal period ends and payments could come sooner than early 2027. You choose PayPal, Venmo, Zelle or a paper check on the claim form, and you have 90 days to cash or accept the payment before it lapses.

To get cash, you must file a claim. The official site says the claim form “must include your unique Class Member Login ID and PIN found on the postcard notice sent to you or available from the Settlement Administrator.” File at SAMCDataSettlement.com, or mail a paper form to P.O. Box 25226, Santa Ana, CA 92799. The deadlines, all set by the court:

• October 22, 2026 — last day to opt out or object (postmark).
• November 6, 2026 — claim deadline, online or postmarked.
• November 11, 2026, 10:00 a.m. — final approval hearing, 500 Pearl Street, New York; the notice warns it may be moved.

Opting out is the only way to keep a right to sue SitusAMC yourself over this incident, and it means no money from this settlement. Three people had done so by September 14. If you stay in — by filing, objecting or doing nothing — you are bound by the release if the settlement is approved. Activating the free credit monitoring does not require a claim.

Class counsel, Milberg, PLLC and Emery Reddy, PC, ask Judge Liman for $1,766,666.67, “which represents one third of the Settlement Fund,” plus $30,733.25 in litigation costs and $2,500 service awards for each of the six class representatives. Their joint declaration lists about 807.9 hours of work and $671,561.60 in lodestar — their hours multiplied by their hourly rates — so the request is, in their words, “a lodestar multiplier of approximately 2.63.” The fee comes out of the same fund as the Flat Cash payments, so every dollar the court trims stays with the class. The settlement does not depend on the fee being granted.

Two class members filed a single objection with the court (ECF No. 59). As described in plaintiffs’ response, they argue that the approximately $75 would not buy comprehensive identity theft protection, that the settlement “must require SitusAMC to completely erase and purge all personal data records belonging to individuals who are not active, direct customers,” and that counsel favored a quick resolution. Counsel reply that “Various laws, rules, statutes, and duties require entities, like SitusAMC, to maintain these records for various purposes and lengths of time,” that SitusAMC has paid separately for security upgrades, and that an objector who wants more could have opted out. The judge decides on the objection, the fees and the settlement at the November 11 hearing.

Yes. The settlement was reached in a case pending in federal court in Manhattan, Judge Liman preliminarily approved it on June 29, 2026, and the court appointed Simpluris, Inc. as administrator. The real channels are the website SAMCDataSettlement.com, the toll-free line (833) 421-7329, active since August 13, 2026, and P.O. Box 25226, Santa Ana, CA 92799. The postcard carries your Login ID and PIN and a credit-monitoring enrollment code at app.financialshield.com. The claim form has no field for your Social Security number.

Many recipients have never heard of SitusAMC: it handled mortgage files for banks and lenders, not for consumers directly, which is why its postcard can look like a scam. The safe route is to type the address into your browser yourself rather than click a link in a text or email, and to treat anyone who asks for a fee, a bank login or a full Social Security number to “release” your payment as a fraud.

In their reply to the objection, class counsel put the deal at “approximately $8.00 per class member before accounting for additional, non-cash benefit of credit monitoring,” and set it against older data breach settlements valued at $0.51 per person (Home Depot) and $0.10 (Target). That is a gross figure, before fees and costs. The more useful number for a claimant is the claim rate: at roughly 2.6 percent in mid-September, the fund is being split among a small group, which is the main reason the final Flat Cash amount could land above the $75 estimate — or, if administration and monitoring costs are high, below it. The administrator’s supplemental numbers, due before November 11, will be the next real data point. Postcards reached 636,927 people; 20,520 could not be delivered, so some class members may not know about the case at all — if you think you received a SitusAMC breach letter but no postcard, the administrator can look up your Login ID and PIN.