Use Fintech Apps Like Venmo, Acorns or Robinhood? You May Qualify for a Monetary Settlement

The Wealth Advisor Contributor

January 26, 2022

(GO BankingRates) - If you’ve used some of the largest cash and fintech apps from Jan 1, 2013 through November 19, 2021, you could be entitled to settlement money.

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Plaid, a company that supports the platform which connects your bank account to apps like Venmo and other cash apps and mobile-friendly investing apps, is being sued for collecting more financial information than was necessary from its customers. Although the company has denied any wrongdoing, they have come to an agreement to pay $58 million to all of its customers with a linked bank account to any of its whopping 5,000 client apps.

Another major claim in the lawsuit said that Plaid was able to obtain user’s bank login information through its “Plaid Link” interface, which “had the look and feel of the user’s own bank account login screen, when users were actually providing their login credentials directly to Plaid,” a website for the lawsuit stated. Plaid again denied these allegations and maintained that adequate disclosures were made.

Despite this, Plaid has agreed to minimize the data it stores moving forward, delete certain data it retrieved in the past and improve upon enhancements to the Plaid Link platform. Members of the Class Action are able to view and manage the connections they have made between their personal financial accounts and applications through Plaid. They will then be able to delete data stored on the platform by creating a Plaid Portal account through my.plaid.com

If you are concerned that you were involved in the data collection, you can confirm whether specific apps or services that connected to your bank accounts were used by Plaid by clicking here. You will then run a search on the page under where it says “Search for App/Service.” Remember, there were thousands of apps and services that Plaid is accused of over-collecting data for, so even if you do not use some of the bigger ones like Venmo, Acorns or Robinhood specifically, it could be a good idea to run a quick search and see if your information is included.

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The deadline to add yourself for compensation to the class action lawsuit is April 28, 2022. You can do so by clicking here.

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