TransUnion’s $8.31 Million Bankruptcy-Remark Settlement: Docket Shows an October 16 “Attorney Fees” Entry — Up to $2.77 Million — While Claims, Opt-Outs and Objections Close October 30, 2026

As of October 19, 2026, the $8.31 million TransUnion inaccurate credit settlement — Brooks v. Trans Union, LLC, the case over bankruptcy “remarks” on credit reports that showed no bankruptcy on public record — has passed the last milestone before its claim deadline. Judge Karen Spencer Marston's preliminary approval order of July 6, 2026 told class counsel: “By October 16, 2026, class counsel shall file with the Court any motion for attorneys’ fees and costs and any motion for a service award for the class representative.” The federal court's electronic docket feed shows an entry tagged “Attorney Fees” filed on October 16, 2026 as docket number 178. We have not been able to read that filing: the court-authorized website promised that “Class Counsel’s request for fees … will be available on October 16, 2026,” but its Important Documents page, when we checked on October 19, still listed only eight documents, ending with the notice and the claim form.

What the request can contain is fixed by the settlement. Class counsel, Francis Mailman Soumilas, P.C. of Philadelphia, said in advance it would ask for $2,770,000 in attorneys’ fees — the preliminary approval memorandum calls that “one-third of the Settlement Fund” — plus up to $308,000 in litigation expenses and up to $50,000 as an individual settlement and service award to the named plaintiff. TransUnion agreed not to object within those limits. Those amounts come out of the $8,310,000 fund, not on top of it.

The date that matters to class members has not moved. Claims, opt-outs and objections are all due on October 30, 2026 — eleven days after this article's date. If you are in the Aged Bankruptcy Group, you get nothing unless you file a claim by then. If you are in the No Bankruptcy Group, your $100 arrives automatically if the settlement is approved, but the larger payment also requires a claim by October 30. The final approval hearing, where the judge will rule on both the settlement and the fee request, is set for December 2, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. in Courtroom 16-B of the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse, 601 Market Street, Philadelphia.

The class is people in the United States and its territories about whom TransUnion sold a consumer report to a third party between January 6, 2020 and January 31, 2023 that “included a bankruptcy remark on a tradeline, but with no reference to a bankruptcy record in the public record section of the same report, and for whom there is no government-held public record of a bankruptcy filing within ten (10) years prior to the date of the report.” The plaintiff alleges this violated section 1681e(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act; “Trans Union denies that it violated the FCRA or engaged in any wrongdoing.” The FAQ counts about 57,000 class members: about 21,000 in the No Bankruptcy Group and about 36,000 in the Aged Bankruptcy Group. You can find out which group you are in by using the Claim Number and PIN on your notice to log into the settlement website.

• No Bankruptcy Group: an automatic $100 with no claim; with a valid claim, an additional payment “expected to be approximately $1,000.”
• Aged Bankruptcy Group: nothing automatic; with a valid claim, a payment “expected to be approximately $350.”

Those estimates, the FAQ says, “are based upon the typical claims rates in similar cases – the actual payment amounts will depend on the actual claims rates in this case and may be lower or higher.” The settlement agreement shows why. A $2,882,900 Claims Fund is split by points: each valid claim from the No Bankruptcy Group earns 3 points, each from the Aged Bankruptcy Group 1. Every point is worth the same, so a No Bankruptcy claimant always gets three times what an Aged Bankruptcy claimant gets — at $350 a point that would be $1,050, by our arithmetic, close to the “approximately $1,000” estimate. The more people file, the smaller each share. About $2,100,000 is set aside separately for the automatic $100 payments. By our arithmetic, after the maximum fees, expenses and service award and those two reserves, about $199,100 of the $8,310,000 remains for administration and other costs.

Nobody gets paid before final approval. The FAQ: “Payments will be sent only after the Court grants final approval to the Settlement and after any appeals are resolved.” The agreement's clock starts with the “Effective Date” — “seven (7) calendar days after the entry of the Final Approval Order if no Notices of Objection are submitted”; if anyone objects, it runs from the end of the time to appeal to the Third Circuit. TransUnion pays the balance of $8,085,000 within 10 days of the Effective Date, and the administrator must send payments within 20 days of it. That means the 20-day payment deadline falls on December 29, 2026 at the earliest, by our arithmetic — and only if the judge signs a final approval order on December 2 and nobody objected. Payment is a paper check unless you chose an electronic option on the website; checks are void 60 days after mailing. If enough money is left afterward to pay at least $10 more to everyone who cashed a check, there is a second distribution, calculated 75 days after the last void date. If not, the rest goes to consumer-focused charities (cy pres) that have not been named yet. Nothing goes back to TransUnion. The agreement also says the administrator will issue an IRS Form 1099 for any payment over $2,000. With these estimates, no class payment should reach that level.

File a claim at BrooksBankruptcyClassAction.com, using the Claim Number and PIN from your notice. The agreement says claims “must be submitted electronically via the Settlement Website using the unique identifier and access code”; a paper form is available once you verify your identity with the same codes, and it must be “postmarked no later than October 30, 2026.” Read the form before you sign it. You certify “subject to the penalty of perjury” that you did not file for bankruptcy in the ten years before the report date in TransUnion's records, and you must check at least one of two boxes: that “My Trans Union credit score decreased as a result of the inclusion of bankruptcy information in my file,” or that “I was denied credit, and one reason for the denial was the inclusion of bankruptcy information on a Trans Union credit report.” A form that is incomplete, unsigned or has no box checked can be rejected, and “the Settlement Administrator’s determination regarding the validity of a Claim Form is final.” Late claims are accepted only if class counsel and TransUnion's counsel both agree to allow them.

Opt out only if you want to keep your right to sue TransUnion on your own. Send a letter to “Exclusion Requests – Brooks v. Trans Union Settlement Administrator” at Brooks v. Trans Union, LLC, c/o Settlement Administrator, P.O. Box 16, West Point, PA 19486, with your full name, address, email, phone, a statement that you want to be excluded, and the unique identifier from your notice, by October 30. If you opt out, you get no payment.

Object if you think the deal or the fee request is unfair. File through the court's CM/ECF system or mail the Clerk of Court, 601 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106, and send a copy to the administrator, by October 30. Under the court's order, “Class members may not both object and opt out”; if you do both, the opt-out counts. To speak at the hearing, your notice of intention to appear must arrive by November 18, 2026. That is also the deadline for class counsel's papers in support of final approval.

What happens right after the deadline. Within 7 days after October 30, the agreement requires the administrator to prepare a declaration with “the number of Valid Claims, and an estimate of the anticipated payment per Settlement Class Member.” That will be the first real number to replace the $1,000 and $350 estimates. Two safety valves are built in. If fewer than 0.5% of the class file, the parties “will meet and confer to agree upon the proper distribution of the Claims Fund,” subject to court approval. If 5% or more opt out, TransUnion may terminate the settlement.

A settlement email is plausible and expected. The agreement makes email the main form of notice: the administrator, Continental DataLogix, LLC, got addresses from TransUnion's records and, where those were missing, from “a commercial vendor to identify email addresses.” Paper notices went to people without a working email. Every genuine notice carries “a unique identifier and access code” — the Claim Number and PIN — and points to one website, BrooksBankruptcyClassAction.com. If you received a notice about this case in May or June 2025, that was the earlier class-certification notice, not the settlement notice.

To check a message, do not click its links. Type BrooksBankruptcyClassAction.com into your browser yourself, or call the administrator's toll-free number, (888) 279-4003. The mailing address is P.O. Box 16, West Point, PA 19486. The genuine claim form asks for your name, address, phone, email and the sworn certification, but no bank details. Payment details are set up only if you choose electronic payment on the official site. The FAQ also says: “Please do not contact Trans Union or the Court for information.” A message asking for a fee to file, or for your full Social Security number, does not match anything in the settlement papers.

Is there a lawsuit against TransUnion? Yes — this one, among others. Brooks v. Trans Union, LLC, No. 2:22-cv-00048-KSM in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, was filed in 2022 and is now in settlement. Class counsel “have not been paid anything for their work since the case began in 2022.” The settlement only covers claims “relating to the reporting of bankruptcies” under section 1681e(b). It does not cover other complaints about TransUnion, such as other errors or data breaches. Other TransUnion cases are separate, and this claim form does not apply to them.

How to dispute a discrepancy on your credit report? The settlement pays money; it does not fix your file. That still takes a dispute. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says to “start by disputing that information with the credit reporting company (Experian, Equifax, and/or Transunion),” to “explain in writing what you think is wrong, why, and include copies of documents that support your dispute,” and then to dispute with the company that supplied the information (the bank or lender, which the CFPB calls a “furnisher”). Furnishers “generally must investigate and respond to your dispute within 30 days.” If that fails, you can file a complaint with the CFPB.

Is there a 1-800-number for TransUnion? For disputes, the CFPB lists TransUnion's line as (800) 916-8800, Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. ET and Saturday and Sunday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET, and its online dispute site as dispute.transunion.com. That number is for your credit file. Questions about the settlement go to the administrator at (888) 279-4003, not TransUnion.

Beyond the money, TransUnion agreed that for five years it “shall maintain reasonable procedures to prevent dissemination of consumer reports to third parties that contain any reference to bankruptcy … unless a bankruptcy is referenced in the public record section of the report” or its records otherwise show a bankruptcy should appear. That is the practice this lawsuit was about: a bankruptcy shown on one account (a “tradeline”) with no bankruptcy on public record. The settlement does not decide who was right. TransUnion still denies wrongdoing, and the Aged Bankruptcy Group's smaller share reflects the risk that its claims might fail.

Three facts are still unpublished as of October 19, 2026: the exact amounts in the October 16 fee filing, how many people have filed claims, and which charities would receive leftover funds. The claims count and a new payment estimate are due in the administrator's declaration after October 30. Objections are due the same day, and class counsel's final approval papers by November 18. Judge Marston rules after the December 2 hearing. Our earlier explainer on the case's background and claim form is linked below.