Another check or a PayPal message is on the way to more than a million people, which most likely wasn’t expecting. The FTC is sending more than $6.8 million to Brigit customers in a second round of payments. This is part of a $18 million settlement against the cash-advance app. It’s a big deal, not because the amounts are huge for each person, but because of what it means for how these apps work.
For those who don’t know, Brigit advertised itself as a way for people who were between paychecks to get by. The offer was easy to understand: sign up, and you could get up to $250 deposited right away, with no questions asked. That offer might sound like just what you need if you are facing an overdraft fee or a notice that your utilities will be cut off. The FTC said that things were much messier in real life, that Brigit made it hard to cancel subscriptions, and that the company’s ads exaggerated what customers could really expect.
As is common in these situations, the company agreed to settle without saying they did anything wrong. This doesn’t tell you much either way. The scale says more. It’s not a rounding error that 18 million dollars were given back to users. A lot of those people thought they weren’t getting what they paid for.
In November 2024, the first round of payments, totaling about $9.8 million, was sent out. The FTC made this second payment because money stayed in the settlement pool after the first round. The extra 1,052,038 payments that are being sent out now are only for people who already got and accepted the first payment. This is not a new claims window. People who didn’t pay attention to the first check aren’t in line for this one.
It’s important to pay attention to the timing. People who receive a paper check have 90 days to cash it. People who get money through PayPal only have 30 days to accept it. If you miss those windows, you probably won’t be able to get the money back. It’s easy to miss this kind of detail, especially if the notification ends up in the spam folder or is thrown out as a scam attempt, which is a mistake that’s easy to understand given how many real scams there are.
When it comes to scams, the FTC has made it clear that real refund processes never charge a fee up front and will never ask for your Social Security number or bank account information to send you money. This isn’t the only time that rule of thumb comes in handy. If someone isn’t sure, they can call Rust Consulting, the company in charge of the refunds, at 833-637-5800 or go to the FTC’s official refund page.
Take a step back and look at this in a bigger picture. The Brigit case isn’t the only one going on. The FTC has been suing a lot of companies to get refunds from customers. These companies include car dealerships that charged hidden fees, debt relief companies that used scare tactics, and PPE sellers who didn’t deliver during the pandemic. All of them have one thing in common: companies make promises that don’t quite match what customers actually get.
It’s not clear if these settlements will change how fintech apps structure their services in the future. The idea behind this is probably that making the action of enforcement known will serve as a deterrent. It’s not clear if that holds true in real life. If you hired Brigit and took that first payment last fall, you might want to check your email or mailbox right now.
