People in the United States whose information was potentially impacted in the Fairmont Federal Credit Union data security incident, in which unauthorized actors accessed the credit union’s systems between September 30 and October 18, 2023, may qualify to claim three years of credit monitoring plus either up to $7,500 in documented losses and up to $140 for lost time, or a cash payment of up to $150, from the Fairmont FCU data breach class action settlement. Claims close December 18, 2026.
Current Status
Claims are open, and claims close December 18, 2026: online by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time, or by mail postmarked by that date. A federal court has authorized notice of the proposed settlement to the class; the plaintiffs asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia for preliminary approval on September 15, 2026, and the court entered an order on that motion on September 22, 2026. The final approval hearing is scheduled for February 8, 2027. Final approval has not been granted, and no payment date has been announced.Free settlement alerts
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What Changed Recently?
Fairmont Federal Credit Union, a credit union with corporate offices in Fairmont, West Virginia, agreed to pay $1,783,857.64 to resolve class action claims over a data security incident on its network. The plaintiffs in Butler v. Fairmont Federal Credit Union filed the proposed settlement on September 15, 2026 and asked the court to approve notice to the class, and the court-authorized notice now sets a December 18, 2026 deadline for claims, opt-outs and objections and a February 8, 2027 final approval hearing. Kroll Settlement Administration LLC is the settlement administrator.The federal case was filed in September 2025. On March 12, 2026, Judge John Preston Bailey dismissed the plaintiffs' unjust enrichment claim and let the rest of the case go forward, and the parties reached the settlement after a mediation on April 24, 2026. Related lawsuits later filed in the circuit courts of Marion County and Kanawha County, West Virginia were consolidated into the federal case and are resolved by the same settlement.
The plaintiffs allege that Fairmont FCU failed to adequately protect the information it held, and the claims resolved by the settlement are negligence, negligence per se, breach of implied contract and breach of fiduciary duty. Fairmont FCU denies all of the allegations and any wrongdoing, and the court has not decided who is right.
Who Qualifies?
The settlement class covers all individuals in the United States whose private information was potentially impacted in the data security incident that Fairmont FCU publicly disclosed on or about April 30, 2025. Fairmont FCU has represented that the class is about 187,038 people. The plaintiffs describe the class as current and former customers and people who engaged in financial transactions with those customers.According to the court-authorized notice, unauthorized actors accessed personal and health information through Fairmont FCU's IT systems between September 30, 2023 and October 18, 2023. The credit union's own notice says it learned of the incident on January 23, 2024, concluded on or about August 17, 2025 that the affected files contained personal information, and began notifying affected people on September 11, 2025.
Excluded are Fairmont FCU and its officers and directors, the judges and court staff assigned to the federal case or the related state cases and their immediate families, anyone who carried out or took part in the incident, and anyone who validly opts out.
How Much Can You Get?
The $1,783,857.64 fund is non-reversionary, so no money returns to Fairmont FCU. It pays the settlement benefits along with notice and administration costs, attorneys' fees and expenses, and service awards. Every class member who files a valid claim can receive credit monitoring, plus one of two cash paths:- Credit monitoring: three years of one-bureau credit monitoring and identity restoration services, including identity theft insurance of up to $1 million. It is in addition to any monitoring a class member already accepted from Fairmont FCU after the breach, and activation codes are sent after final approval and any appeals.
- Documented losses: reimbursement of unreimbursed out-of-pocket losses up to $7,500 per person, incurred between September 30, 2023 and December 18, 2026. Each loss needs reasonable third-party documentation; self-prepared documents alone are not enough.
- Attested time: $35 an hour for up to four hours, a maximum of $140, with a written attestation. Attested time can be claimed alone or added to a documented-loss claim, but not combined with the alternative cash payment.
- Alternative cash payment: instead of documented losses and attested time, a cash payment of up to $150 with no documentation. It is paid pro rata, so it can be lower than $150.
After fees, costs and service awards, the net fund pays benefits in a fixed order: documented losses first, then attested time, then credit monitoring, and finally the alternative cash payments, which split whatever remains equally among valid claimants up to the $150 cap. The final per-person cash amount will not be known until the claim period closes. For context on how payouts in cases like this tend to compare with the advertised figures, see OCA's study of data breach settlement payouts per person.
Class counsel, Lynch Carpenter LLP and The Giatras Law Firm, will ask the court for attorneys' fees of up to one-third of the fund ($594,599.74) plus documented costs, and for service awards of up to $5,000 for each class representative, up to $3,500 for each state-court plaintiff and up to $1,000 for each tag-along plaintiff. Fairmont FCU also agreed to cybersecurity enhancements, including training, for five years.
What Proof or Notice ID Is Required?
The court-approved notice plan sends individual notice by mail, and by email where an address is available, to the people on Fairmont FCU's class list. The online claim form opens on a login step with a single required field, the Class Member ID printed on that notice, and it will not continue without it. That is why this settlement is listed as proof required even though the cash options themselves need no receipts. Questions about a missing notice go to the settlement administrator, Kroll, through the official settlement website.No documentation is needed for the alternative cash payment, and attested time uses a written attestation instead of receipts. The documented-loss benefit requires reasonable third-party documentation of each loss, such as bank statements or receipts.
What Is the Deadline?
Claims must be submitted online by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on December 18, 2026, or mailed with a postmark of December 18, 2026 or earlier. The same date is the deadline to opt out, by a mailed request postmarked by December 18, 2026, and to object, by filing the objection with the court or mailing it to the court, with copies mailed to the lawyers the notice lists, by that date.How Do You Take Action?
Claims are filed through the official Fairmont FCU data settlement website, which Kroll runs, or on a paper claim form mailed to the administrator. A claim selects credit monitoring and either the alternative cash payment or the documented-loss and attested-time benefits, and must include documentation for any out-of-pocket loss.Class members who do not opt out are bound by the settlement and release their claims against Fairmont FCU over the incident, whether or not they file a claim. Opting out preserves the right to sue separately but forfeits any settlement benefits.
What Happens Next?
The final approval hearing is scheduled for February 8, 2027 at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time at the federal courthouse in Clarksburg, West Virginia. The court will decide whether the settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate and rule on the requests for attorneys' fees, costs and service awards. The notice says the hearing date and time may change. Payments and credit monitoring activation codes go out only after final approval and the end of any appeals.Sources and Verification
- Official Fairmont FCU data settlement website (Kroll), which hosts the court-authorized long form notice and claim form
- Court-authorized long form notice (PDF)
- Butler v. Fairmont Federal Credit Union, No. 1:25-cv-00094-JPB (N.D. W. Va.) docket
- Memorandum in support of preliminary approval (ECF No. 41, Sept. 15, 2026)
- Motion for preliminary approval (ECF No. 42, Sept. 15, 2026)
- Class action complaint (ECF No. 1, Sept. 16, 2025)
- Fairmont Federal Credit Union notice of data security incident
More on how these cases work is in OCA's data breach class action explainer. OpenClassActions.com is a consumer news and information site, not a law firm. This article is general information about the Fairmont Federal Credit Union data breach settlement. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Questions
Can a Fairmont FCU class member receive both the alternative cash payment and lost-time pay?
The settlement treats them as separate paths. According to the court-authorized notice, attested time of $35 an hour, up to four hours, can be combined with any other benefit except the alternative cash payment, and the alternative cash payment of up to $150 is an alternative to the documented-loss and attested-time benefits. Three years of credit monitoring is available with either path.
Why is the Fairmont FCU cash payment listed as up to $150?
The alternative cash payment is paid last from the net settlement fund, which is what remains after administration costs, attorneys' fees and expenses and service awards. The notice says documented out-of-pocket losses are paid first, then attested time, then credit monitoring. What remains is divided equally among everyone with a valid alternative cash claim, capped at $150 each, so the actual amount depends on how many people file.
What information was exposed in the Fairmont Federal Credit Union data incident?
Fairmont FCU's notice says the files accessed between September 30 and October 18, 2023 may have included names, dates of birth, addresses, Social Security numbers, passport, driver's license and other ID numbers, financial account and routing numbers, card numbers with security codes or PINs and expiration dates, IRS PINs, login credentials, security questions and answers, digital signatures, and health and health insurance information. Not every data element was involved for every person.
Does the Fairmont FCU settlement change the credit union's data security?
Fairmont FCU agreed to cybersecurity enhancements, including training, for five years. Under the plaintiffs' summary of the agreement, the credit union keeps the security measures it adopted after the incident, pays for them itself outside the settlement fund, and describes them to the court in a confidential declaration.
What happens to credit monitoring Fairmont FCU already offered after the breach?
Fairmont FCU offered complimentary credit monitoring to people whose Social Security numbers were involved when it began sending breach notices in September 2025. The notice says the settlement's three years of monitoring is in addition to any monitoring a class member already accepted, so someone who took two years earlier could have five in total. According to the plaintiffs' summary of the agreement, the credit union separately pays for the earlier monitoring, outside the settlement fund.
