SEATTLE — In general, unsolicited mail and phone calls should be met with additional scrutiny.
It's the reason why one viewer was skeptical when she got a postcard in the mail that claimed she might be eligible for a $7,500 settlement. While the postcard claimed to be related to the Washington Department of Licensing, it had a New York address and a 1-888 phone number.
So, when Kim reached out to VERIFY with questions about the settlement, we tracked down the people behind the postcard.
As it turns out Kim was one of just hundreds of thousands of people in Washington who may have received the same postcard in the mail.
THE QUESTION
Our VERIFY question comes from KREM 2 viewer Kim who writes:
I received a postcard from Garcia v Washington State DOL postmarked NYC with a phone number saying I might be eligible for up to a $7,509 settlement. Could you please verify? It sounds like a scam.
THE SOURCES
Kaleigh Boyd, an attorney with Tousley Brain Stephens in Seattle
THE ANSWER
The postcards are part of a settlement reached in the case of Garcia v Washington.
The State Department of Licensing announced in January of 2022 that roughly 650,000 people were impacted by the breach of its professional licensing system. Personal information, including the social security numbers, of people with active, expired, revoked, and suspended professional licenses was compromised.
”For a certain number of those professions, it kept those licensees' information in a database called Polaris, and in January of 2022 that database was breached by some third-party hacker, and certain licensees information, actually, over half a million licensees' information was taken,” attorney Kayleigh Boyd said.
Boyd’s firm represents clients in the class action lawsuit against the Department of Licensing. She says while the DOL denies any wrongdoing in the breach they agreed to a $3.5-million settlement
This brings us back to the postcards.
"If you received a postcard, it means that according to the Washington state Department of Licensing records, you were a person whose personal information was impacted by this data breach," Boyd said. "They are real, and they contain pretty important information about how to file a claim if you’re a class member in the DOL data breach.”
So, we can VERIFY, yes, the postcards from Garcia v Washington State DOL are legitimate.
If you received one of the notices, you have until October 9th to file a claim at wadoldatabreachsettlement.com. Payments of up to $7,500 are expected to be sent out later in October.
What if you didn't get a postcard, or lost it, and think you might be impacted by the data breach?
"If you received a notice from the Department of Licensing in February or March of last year that you were impacted by this data breach, but you don't receive a postcard in the next week or two, you can contact our settlement administrator," Boyd said. "They have the class list and they can tell you if you're a member."
To reach the settlement administrator call 1-833-747-6403 or mail:
Garcia v. Washington State DOL c/o Kroll Settlement Administration LLC
P.O. Box 225391
New York, NY 10150-5391
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