Equifax Told You a Hard Inquiry Was 'a Factual Record.' That Brush-Off Could Be Worth $100 to $400 if You Claim by November 29.

If you ever told Equifax that a hard inquiry on your credit report wasn’t yours, you may be owed $100 to $400. Equifax has agreed to pay $30 million to settle four lawsuits over how it handled those disputes. Claims close November 29.

You need the claim number and PIN from a notice that may already be sitting in your inbox. Go find it.

What Equifax did

A hard inquiry is the mark a lender leaves when it pulls your credit after you apply. Too many of them can shave points off your score. If one shows up from a lender you never applied with, that’s a red flag for identity theft, and the law gives you the right to dispute it.

The lawsuits say that when people disputed those inquiries, Equifax didn’t contact the company that pulled the report and didn’t remove the inquiry. Instead, some people got a form letter that said, “Inquiries are a factual record of file access. If you believe this was unauthorized, please contact the creditor.”

Translation: yes, someone looked at your file. Take it up with them.

The plaintiffs argued that’s not an investigation, and that it broke the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Equifax denies it. It still booked $30 million for the settlement in its own SEC filing.

Who gets what

About 3 million people are in the class, and Equifax’s records decide which group you’re in, not you.

The general dispute group is anyone who disputed a hard inquiry with Equifax, by any method, between August 31, 2021 and March 27, 2026. Estimated payment: about $100.

The certified group mailed a dispute between October 4, 2016 and March 27, 2026, had it coded “not mine” or “unauthorized,” and got that “factual record” letter back. Estimated payment: about $300. New York residents who got the letter between November 27, 2017 and September 10, 2024 get an estimated $400.

Here’s the catch. Those are estimates. Lawyers can take up to $10 million, a third of the fund, before you see anything. Class counsel built those estimates on typical claim rates in similar cases, which means they assume most people won’t bother. Fewer claims means bigger checks for the people who do.

Verdict: five minutes of work for $100 to $400. Worth it.

Do this now

Search your email and your mail for a notice from the settlement administrator for Hines v. Equifax. The claim number and PIN are on it. Enter both at EquifaxDisputeClassAction.com, which also tells you which group you’re in.

Read the certification before you sign. You have to check at least one statement: that Equifax’s handling of your dispute caused you an economic loss, a loss of privacy or other negative consequences, or that a lender denied you credit partly because of the inquiry you disputed. You’re signing under penalty of perjury, so check only what’s true.

No notice, but you remember disputing an inquiry? Call the administrator, Continental DataLogix, at 833-244-4150 before November 29.

While you’re in there, pull your reports and look for inquiries you don’t recognize. Our credit score guide explains what an inquiry costs you, and our count of how often bureau disputes actually get fixed walks through the dispute route that still works.

The detail

The settlement covers four cases: Hines in the Eastern District of New York, Rivera and Neubauer in the Northern District of Georgia, and Oblack in New Jersey. The opt-out and objection deadline is November 20. The final approval hearing is December 10, and no money goes out until the deal is approved and any appeals are resolved.

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