GeoTek Data Breach Settlement — $25 or $75 Cash, or Up to $2,000

Data Breach · Claims Open

Current Status

Claims are open. The deadline to file a GeoTek settlement claim is December 1, 2026, whether the form is submitted online, emailed, or mailed with a postmark by that date; the notice states no cutoff time or timezone. The San Diego County Superior Court has granted preliminary approval and set the final approval hearing for December 11, 2026 at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time. No final approval order has been entered and no payment date has been announced. Class members who want a payment should file now using the LoginID and PIN from their mailed postcard.

What Changed Recently?

GeoTek, Inc. agreed to a $150,000 class action settlement resolving claims over a targeted cyberattack on its computer systems in September 2023. According to the notice, files containing private information were accessed during the attack, and those files may have held employees' names, addresses and Social Security numbers. The lawsuit, Borron, et al. v. GeoTek, Inc., was filed in the Superior Court of California for San Diego County. GeoTek denies any wrongdoing, and the court has not decided who is right; both sides settled to avoid the cost and uncertainty of continued litigation. Preliminary approval opened the claim period, and Simpluris mailed postcard notices with individual login credentials to the people on GeoTek's list of affected employees.

Who Qualifies?

The class is defined as current and former employees of GeoTek who reside in the United States and whose information was impacted by the cybersecurity incident. The notice says GeoTek's records identify each person who received it as a class member, and that some may have received an earlier breach notification directly from the company.

Excluded from the class are the judge assigned to the case and the judge's family and staff, GeoTek itself and its officers and directors, anyone who validly opts out, and anyone who carried out the cyberattack. There is no separate customer or client class; this settlement covers GeoTek's workforce only.

How Much Can You Get?

The $150,000 settlement fund first pays court-approved attorneys' fees and costs, a service award to the class representative, and the cost of notice and administration. Class counsel will ask the court for up to $50,000 in fees and up to $15,000 in litigation costs, plus a $2,500 service award. What remains pays three benefits, and a class member may claim every one that applies:

• A one-time cash payment expected to be $25, or $75 for California residents. No documentation is required for this payment, and the notice says the actual amount may be larger or smaller depending on how many claims are filed.
• Reimbursement of up to $2,000 for documented out-of-pocket expenses caused by the cyberattack and incurred between September 1, 2023 and December 1, 2026. The notice lists fees for credit reports, credit monitoring and credit freezes, the cost of replacing identification documents, and postage for contacting banks by mail as examples.
• Two years of credit monitoring from one credit bureau, with $1 million in identity theft insurance, real-time credit file monitoring, dark web scanning, public records monitoring and access to a fraud resolution agent.

If the total value of approved claims exceeds the net fund, every payment is reduced pro rata. The $25 and $75 figures are the administrator's expectations, not guarantees; given the fund size and the likely fee and cost deductions, the cash payment could fall below those amounts if the claim rate is high.