There are 10 million of you out there who might have checks coming to you as part of a class action lawsuit settlement, but unless you keep a very close eye on your mail, you might end up tossing it with your junk mail.

Geri Detweiler of Credit.com writes about a case she was a part of, the Currency Conversion Fee Antitrust Litigation, which she filed to be a part of back in 2008. But as the years passed, and she didn’t receive a check as part of the settlement, she ended up forgetting about the whole thing.

Then the other day, she received a check for $18.04 in the mail, but if she hadn’t been careful, it would’ve been tossed for being junk mail. Consumers so often get mail with barcodes and “return service requested” with stamps claiming they’re about to be paid, that the way the check was packaged could’ve seen like a scam.

It turns out the final approval of the settlement was back in the fall of 2009, and the court authorized settlement payments to go out in October 2011. A little notification would’ve been nice, eh?

Detweiler advises consumers to avoid any emails or phone calls from anyone offering to help you process a refund. Settlement administrators don’t work that way — instead, they just send checks years later without prior notification, that you may or may not notice.

Millions Sent Checks Thanks to Currency Conversion Fee Class Action Lawsuit [Credit.com]

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