How Trader Joe's Customers Can Claim Payouts From This $7.4 Million Lawsuit

Class action lawsuits against major retailers and restaurant chains occur quite frequently in this day and age, but Trader Joe's is making headlines for officially settling a lawsuit for a total of $7,400,000 which will be given to those impacted by the chain's infraction of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) in 2019. This violation of the FACTA was the result of select Trader Joe's locations printing receipts that included the first four and last six digits of customers' credit and debit card numbers from March 5, 2019 until July 19, 2019.

While there has been no evidence that this blunder resulted in any customers experiencing identity theft, those who used a credit or debit card at Trader Joe's during these four months in 2019 could still walk away with an estimated payout of $102.45 if they file a claim before June 6, 2026 and were among the estimated 757,663 people with card numbers that were over-disclosed, per court documents. While many of these customers should receive an email or a piece of physical mail telling them they're eligible for a payout, those who do not receive such a notice can still check for themselves by filling out a personalized claim form and mailing it in to see if they qualify. So, if you're the type of person who has been shopping at Trader Joe's every week for years, now is the time to look into the settlement and see if you qualify.

The settlement comes after years of deliberation. It was first filed by plaintiff Brian Keim nearly seven years ago on July 17, 2019 — two days before the company took action to fix the issue. While Trader Joe's attempted to shut down the lawsuit over the years to follow, the settlement was eventually granted on February 5, 2026 during a hearing at the Los Angeles County Superior Court. As the person who initially filed the lawsuit, Keim hopes to receive a $10,000 incentive payment as part of the settlement.

This is far from the only lawsuit against a grocery store chain in recent memory. In fact, Costco got hit with two new class action lawsuits over the past year in the span of just three months. November 2025 saw the start of a mislabeling lawsuit over Kirkland Signature Tequila, while January 2026 was when Costco got sued for allegedly falsely advertising its rotisserie chicken as "preservative-free" to its customers. This isn't the first time Trader Joe's has had its hands full with a class-action lawsuit, mind you, but it is the most costly in recent memory. Trader Joe's had to pay out over $3 million in a class action settlement back in 2014 over falsely advertising products as being "all natural" when they weren't. Then in 2021, it was required to pay $1 million due to selling underfilled cans of tuna.