Proof of purchase
Proof of purchase is documentation showing you bought the product or used the service, usually a receipt, an order confirmation, a bank statement line, or a photograph of the item.
Whether you need it depends entirely on the settlement. Many pay a modest flat amount with no documentation at all, on the strength of a signed statement that you qualify. Others pay more but ask you to prove it, and some do both: a small amount without proof, a larger one with.
Acceptable proof is broader than people assume. An email order confirmation, a loyalty card history, a credit card statement showing the merchant, or a photo of the product with a batch code are all commonly accepted. If you have lost the receipt, read the claim form before assuming you are excluded.
Where no documentation is required, the claim form still asks you to confirm the facts under penalty of perjury. That is not decoration: filing a claim you are not entitled to is fraud.
Related terms
Claim deadline
The claim deadline is the last day the administrator will accept your claim form. Miss it and you almost always get nothing, even if you clearly qualified.
Class action settlement
A class action settlement is an agreement that ends a lawsuit brought on behalf of a large group of people, where the defendant pays into a fund that group members can claim from without suing individually.