Fraudulent claims inflate the claims rate, dilute legitimate claims, and undermine the public’s faith in the class action process, said Victoria Waciura, Esq., Epiq’s Vice President of Class Action and Mass Tort Solutions, during the 2025 Women of Class Summit.

“Fraudsters are always evolving, and we’re always evolving on the administration side and counsel side looking out for these things,” Waciura said. “It’s really just like a boxing match, and us trying to duck and move and look for what the next thing is and be two steps ahead of it.”

Waciura and Marie-Anaïs Sauvé, a partner with Sylvestre Painchaud and Associates, discussed the problems with fraudulent claims and how to combat them during the second annual conference recently held in Banff, Alberta, Canada.

Sauvé said Western Alliance Bank reported in 2024 that fraudulent claims may comprise as much as half of all claims, and there has been an increase of 19,000 percent in significant indicia of fraud between 2021 and 2023.

The pair answered questions from attendees and included Loree Kovach, Epiq’s Senior Vice President of Strategy and Client Technology, and Tieya Lacroix, Epiq’s Director of Client Services, to share additional insights. Below are some highlights from the Q&A.

What are some things you wish counsel would think about before the case is handed over?

Kovach said it’s important to give the administrator time at the end to do the claims analysis, because duplication and repetition is hard to catch early in the process.

“You might see five instances of something halfway through the claim period, but by the deadline, you've seen it a thousand times and that's suspicious,” she said.

It’s also important to give yourself and the administrator discretion, because many times action is being taken based on what is seen in the incoming data. Additional follow up might be needed that wasn’t contemplated in the settlement agreement, and that “gives you some more flexibility to react to what you're seeing in a way that makes sense for the cost and for the data,” Kovach said.

“To prevent fraudsters from adjusting their strategies, it is important that Epiq's criteria for denying (or admitting) a claim are not specified in the settlement agreement – which is a public document,” Sauvé said.

Because of the increase in fraud, will the industry move back to paper claims?

Kovach said she does not believe the industry will return to paper overall, but in some cases it could be valuable. She said when items are flagged as possible fraud, Epiq can respond with a request for a paper claim to be filed.

“If it really is fraud, those bad actors are a lot less likely to file a thousand paper claims than to file a thousand digital, and so in some cases, directing people to paper can really help combat this,” Kovach said.

In cases where there’s so much fraud, how do you deal with the obligation of deficiency letters?

Sauvé said discussions between the lawyers and administrators are important to help draw the line.

“Do we feel safe with the three indicia of fraud, or do we think that we should level up to five or four or whatever?” she said.

At some point, claims with a certain number of indicia of fraud are rejected outright and don’t get a chance to go through the deficiency process, Waciura said.

Allowing more time in the claims process is imperative and can have an impact on budget, too, according to Lacroix.

“We want to make sure that we're only reaching out to the folks who are legitimate claimants,” she said.

Kovach said that flexibility given to the administrator comes in to play because, through consultation with counsel, it can be decided that certain claims don’t need a formal notice because they’re so obviously fraudulent.

How much of CAPTCHA is used in the claim applications?

Epiq uses reCAPTCHA for online claim forms. Cloudflare, a program in which algorithms determine the likeliness of the user being a bot or something automated, is also utilized, Kovach said. Both are effective in blocking fraud.

How does an administrator deal with people not trusting the email about their claim because they’re concerned it could be fraud?

Sauvé said two things help build trust. One, her firm sends an email to claimants who have registered on their website that informs them they’ll receive an email from the administrator. Two, all class actions in Quebec are registered on the Superior Court website. Publishing a notice on this register could help claimants know the settlement is real.

Claimants do a risk-benefit analysis to determine if it’s worth releasing sensitive information for a return of $50, for example, Waciura said.

Alternate payments such as PayPal and Venmo are important, according to Kovach, because they require less sensitive claimant information. However, they’re also more susceptible to fraud.

“It’s a little bit of a balancing act, but if you have good mechanisms in place to eliminate fraud, that can also help the legitimate claimants that have trust issues,” Kovach said.

What could we do when a case is taking longer than expected?

Assume there will be fraudulent claims in every case, even if counsel has the full class list and only direct notice is being sent, and build in an extra month or two for the process, Kovach said.

“Don't be lulled into a false sense of security because you think you have some unique data point the fraudsters wouldn’t know, because they have ways of finding it,” she said. “There's the dark web too, right? So, if there's been a breach for that particular defendant, they may be able to get data from that breach that they could use for claims as well.”

Have there been instances of someone copying a claims process to run a phishing scam?

Kovach said she has not seen phishing, but Epiq has seen third-party filers create websites that look like Epiq’s. At the bottom, they have language in tiny print stating they’ll take 40 percent of someone’s claim when they sign up with them.

About the Women of Class Summit

Now in its second year, Women of Class is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for female class action lawyers in Canada to expand their network, forge meaningful collaborations, gain invaluable mentorship, and build lasting connections in a relaxed and supportive atmosphere. It is co-sponsored by Epiq and McKenzie Lake Lawyers.