People who kept receiving Palm Beach Tan text messages after replying STOP could claim up to $1,500 per message from the $2.5 million TCPA class action settlement. Claims closed October 4, 2026; the final approval hearing is scheduled for December 29, 2026.
Current Status
Claims are closed. Claim Forms had to be submitted online or postmarked by October 4, 2026, which was also the deadline to opt out of the class or object to the settlement. The Court has preliminarily approved the settlement, and the Final Approval Hearing is scheduled for December 29, 2026 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Payments go out only after the Court grants final approval and all valid claims are counted. The most recent filing on the public court docket, on September 4, 2026, concerns attorneys’ fees; no final approval order has been entered.What Changed Recently?
The case behind this settlement is Hudson v. Palm Beach Tan, Inc. & Archer Malmo, Inc., Case No. 1:23-cv-00486-WO-JEP, pending in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. The named plaintiff alleges that the two companies violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending more than one telemarketing text message advertising Palm Beach Tan's products and services to a residential cell phone number after that number had already messaged them to stop.A Settlement Agreement has now been reached and the Court has authorized notice to the class, which is what opened the claim process. Palm Beach Tan and Archer Malmo have each agreed to fund a $2,500,000 settlement, and eligible class members could file for a share until October 4, 2026.
Both defendants deny any wrongdoing. According to the Notice, each denies that the text messages at issue were telemarketing or telephone solicitations under the TCPA and its regulations, denies that a class could be certified for litigation, and denies that it violated the TCPA or any other law or has any liability to the plaintiff or anyone else. No court has found either company liable; the settlement resolves the claims without resolving who was right.
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Who Qualifies?
The Court has conditionally approved a single Settlement Class: all persons who, within the Class Period, were sent a Palm Beach Tan Text Message after that phone number had sent an inbound text message Stop Request. A Palm Beach Tan Text Message is defined as a message alleged to have marketed or advertised goods or services provided by Palm Beach Tan in the case.The Class Period runs from June 19, 2019 through July 5, 2026.
Two things have to line up. First, your number sent an inbound stop request — a reply telling the sender to quit texting. Second, at least one Palm Beach Tan marketing text arrived at that number afterward. Each of those later messages is a Post-Stop Message, and the number of them is what your payment is calculated on.
You do not need to still be a Palm Beach Tan customer, and you do not need to remember the dates. The Settlement Administrator determines how many Post-Stop Messages you were sent from the text message data in the case. If a postcard or an email about this settlement reached you, it is because that data shows your number. Class members who submit a valid request for exclusion are out of the class and receive nothing from the fund.
The class is narrow by design: it reaches Palm Beach Tan messages and nothing else. If the texts that kept arriving after your stop request came from a different business, this fund is not yours to claim, but the conduct is still covered by the same statute — OCA's investigation into ignored STOP requests is where to take that.
How Much Can You Get?
The defendants have agreed to a $2,500,000 Settlement Fund. Attorneys' fees, litigation costs, an incentive award to the class representative and settlement administration costs come out of that fund first, and what remains is used to pay class members who submit valid claims.A class member who files a valid Claim Form is entitled to up to $1,500 for each Post-Stop Message shown in the text message data, and every class member receives the same amount per message. That structure matters: two people with the same number of messages get the same payment, and someone who was texted four times after their stop request is in line for four times what someone texted once receives.
The $1,500 figure is a ceiling rather than a projection. The Notice states plainly that cash payment amounts depend on the total number of valid claims filed and on how much money is left in the fund after the deductions above. Class Counsel will ask the Court to approve fees of up to 33% of the fund — roughly $825,000 — plus reimbursement of expenses, and the class representative will request an incentive award of up to $10,000. Both requests are subject to Court approval, and the Court may award less. Once those come out, and before administration costs, which the Notice does not quantify, something on the order of $1.6 million would be left for class payments. At the full $1,500 per message that would cover roughly 1,100 Post-Stop Messages before the per-message amount has to come down. Treat that as an estimate built from the Notice's own figures, not a promise — the real number turns on what the Court awards, what administration costs and how many people file.
Any money left in the fund, and any settlement checks class members never cash, goes to a charitable organization rather than back to the defendants.
What Proof or Claim ID Is Required?
No receipts, screenshots, phone bills or carrier records are required. Nothing you upload establishes how many messages you were sent — the Settlement Administrator takes that from the text message data in the case.The claim page on the settlement website offered three routes, and only the first two involved the Claim ID and PIN printed on the notice: filing securely online, or downloading a pre-filled Claim Form to print and mail. The third route was for people who did not have those credentials — they could download a Claim Form, print it, fill it in and mail it, so a class member who never received a notice could still file by mail before the deadline.
The printed Claim Form asks for your first and last name, mailing address, city, state, ZIP, country and email address, an optional current telephone number, and — this one is required — the telephone number at which you received a Post-Stop Message. That last field is the one that ties your claim to the message records, so give the number the texts actually went to, even if you no longer use it. The form has to be completed, signed and mailed.
What Is the Deadline?
Claim Forms must be submitted online or postmarked no later than October 4, 2026. The Notice gives the date without a time of day or an official timezone, so this page publishes only the date.October 4, 2026 is also the deadline to ask to be excluded from the class and the deadline to object to the settlement. That is unusual — on most settlements the exclusion window closes weeks before claims do — and it means one date decides all three choices. There is no later opportunity to opt out once it passes.
How Claims Were Filed
Claims were filed through the official settlement website, Hudson Class Settlement, or by mail. Class members with the Claim ID and PIN from their notice could file online or download a pre-filled form to print and mail; those without them could download a Claim Form, complete it and mail it to the Settlement Administrator. Every form had to be signed, and mailed forms had to be postmarked by October 4, 2026.The case documents, including the complaint, the defendants' answers and the Settlement Agreement, are posted on the settlement website.
Opting Out and Objecting
The deadline to opt out of the class or object to the settlement was also October 4, 2026. Opting out meant giving up any payment in exchange for keeping the right to sue Palm Beach Tan and Archer Malmo individually over the claims this settlement covers — the route individual TCPA text claims normally take, where the statute sets damages at $500 per message and up to $1,500 where a court finds the violation willful or knowing. Exclusion requests had to be mailed to the Settlement Administrator, and objections filed with the Clerk of the Court and served on counsel, by that date and in the form the Notice required. Class members who did not object in that manner cannot raise an objection later, by appeal or otherwise.Class members who did nothing stay in the class and are bound by the release; they receive a payment only if they filed a valid claim.
What Class Members Give Up
Class members who did not opt out by October 4, 2026 give a release for claims arising between June 19, 2019 and July 5, 2026 that arose from or in connection with Palm Beach Tan messages sent to Settlement Class Members during the Class Period. In practical terms that means they cannot sue, or join another lawsuit against, Palm Beach Tan, Archer Malmo or the other Released Parties defined in the Settlement Agreement over the claims and issues in this case, and they are bound by the Court's orders and by the Agreement. The release binds them whether or not they filed a claim.What Happens Next?
The claim, exclusion and objection windows all closed October 4, 2026. The Final Approval Hearing is scheduled for December 29, 2026 in Courtroom One of the U.S. Courthouse in Greensboro, North Carolina, where the Court will decide whether the settlement is fair, reasonable and adequate and will rule on Class Counsel's fee application and on the incentive award. Class members are not required to attend, and the Notice cautions that the hearing can be postponed to a later date without further notice — the settlement website is where changes are posted.The Notice states that after all valid Claim Forms are counted and the Court grants final approval, the Settlement Administrator provides each claiming class member with their share of what remains in the fund. A hearing being held is not the same as approval being granted, and approval being granted is not the same as payments being released. The most recent filing on the public court docket, on September 4, 2026, concerns attorneys’ fees; no final approval order has been entered.
Sources and Verification
• Official settlement website — Hudson Class Settlement• Notice of Proposed Class Action Settlement (PDF)
• Official online Claim Form and printable Claim Form
• Hudson v. Palm Beach Tan, Inc. & Archer Malmo, Inc., Case No. 1:23-cv-00486-WO-JEP, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina: CourtListener docket
• National Do Not Call Registry (FTC)
• FCC — Telemarketing and robocall rules under the TCPA
Questions
I never got a notice, or I threw it away. Can I still file a claim?
The claim deadline passed on October 4, 2026. Before then, the claim page on the settlement website offered a route for people without a Claim ID and PIN: they could download a personalized Claim Form, print it and mail it in. For every claim filed, the Settlement Administrator determines how many qualifying messages were sent from the text message data.
What exactly counts as a Post-Stop Message?
It is a Palm Beach Tan text message sent to a phone number after that number had already sent an inbound text Stop Request. The Settlement Class is defined that way, and the Notice states that each class member is entitled to a payment per Post-Stop Message as reflected in the text message data. The count comes from the message records rather than from anything a claimant submits, so screenshots are not what establishes it.
Will I actually receive $1,500 for each text?
Treat $1,500 as a ceiling, not a projection. The Notice states that each class member who files a valid claim is entitled to up to $1,500 per Post-Stop Message, that everyone receives an equal amount per message, and that the actual figure depends on how many valid claims are filed and how much of the $2,500,000 fund is left after attorneys' fees, costs, an incentive award and administration costs are deducted.
Why is an advertising agency a defendant alongside Palm Beach Tan?
Archer Malmo, Inc. is named as a co-defendant in the case, which concerns telemarketing text messages about Palm Beach Tan's products and services. Both companies deny any wrongdoing, deny that the messages were telemarketing or telephone solicitations under the TCPA, deny that a class could be certified, and deny that they are liable to anyone. The Court has not decided who is right; the parties settled instead of litigating.
The claim, exclusion and objection deadlines are all the same day. Does that matter?
It mattered for anyone weighing whether to sue on their own. All three fell on October 4, 2026, so there was no later window to reconsider. Class members who did nothing by that date stay in the class and give up the claims the settlement releases, whether or not they filed for payment.
When would payments actually go out?
Not before the Court rules. The Final Approval Hearing is scheduled for December 29, 2026, and the Notice states that after all valid Claim Forms are counted and the settlement is given final approval, the Settlement Administrator distributes each claiming class member's share. The most recent filing on the public court docket, on September 4, 2026, concerns attorneys’ fees; no final approval order has been entered.
The texts that ignored my STOP were not from Palm Beach Tan. Is this settlement any use to me?
Not this fund — it pays only for messages the case identifies as Palm Beach Tan texts, and the Settlement Administrator works from the message data in that case. The statute behind it is not company-specific, though: the TCPA sets damages at $500 per illegal message and up to $1,500 where a court finds the violation willful or knowing, whoever sent it. OCA's spam text message investigation covers what to do when a business keeps texting after you asked it to stop, and the TCPA hub lists the settlements that are currently open.
