MG217 Shampoo Settlement: How to File a Claim Before the September 24, 2026 Deadline
If you bought MG217 coal tar shampoo in the United States on or after January 1, 2021, you can claim from a settlement, and the last day to do it is September 24, 2026.
The claim page is here: www.mg217shampoosettlement.com/claim.
One thing to know before you start, because it is unusual. Most settlements let a service file on your behalf. This one does not. The settlement agreement and the claim form both say that forms sent in by claim aggregators or bulk-filers will be rejected, and the form you sign carries a line certifying that you submitted it yourself. So whatever else you use to keep track of settlements, this claim has to go in under your own hand. Below is what it covers, what it pays, and what to have in front of you when you open the form.
What the MG217 lawsuit is about
The case is Lorisa Pineda v. Lake Consumer Products, Inc., No. 5:24-cv-01074, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Lake Consumer Products is the Wisconsin company that makes MG217.
The complaint alleges that Lake did not manufacture its coal tar shampoos in line with the FDA's current Good Manufacturing Practices — the federal rules covering how a drug product is made and tested — and that as a result the shampoos carried undisclosed levels of benzene, a chemical the FDA says should not be present in a drug product unless it cannot be avoided. The complaint argues that it can be avoided here, because there are long-established ways of refining coal tar that strip the benzene out.
Lake denies all of it. It denies any fault or wrongdoing and says the products are safe and meet state and federal rules. The court has not decided who is right, and a settlement is not a finding that anyone did anything wrong. Both sides agreed to settle to avoid the cost and uncertainty of continuing to litigate.
As part of the deal, Lake has agreed not to make, market, distribute or sell these products unless the finished product contains no more than 0.5% coal tar by weight.
Which MG217 products are covered
The settlement covers MG217 coal tar shampoos, including these formulations:
- MG217 Psoriasis Extra Strength
- MG217 Psoriasis Medicated Conditioning 3% Coal Tar Shampoo
- MG217 Dandruff Therapeutic Shampoo
You are in the class if you bought any formulation of those products in the United States or its territories between January 1, 2021 and June 25, 2026. There is no requirement that you were harmed, that you still have the bottle, or that you live in a particular state.
What the MG217 settlement pays
Lake has agreed to put up $1,200,000 in total: a $700,000 cash fund and $500,000 in vouchers. Both are non-reversionary, which means whatever is not paid out to claimants does not go back to the company.
You pick a cash payment, a voucher, or — if you have a receipt — both.
| Benefit | What it pays |
|---|---|
| Cash, with proof of purchase | The purchase price of each qualifying bottle |
| Cash, without proof of purchase | Up to $7.00 per qualifying bottle |
| Voucher | $25.00 toward the MG217 product line |
Every one of those figures moves. Payments are adjusted pro rata — the fund is a fixed size, so it is divided among everyone whose claim is approved, and each share goes up if few people claim and down if many do. Nobody can tell you today what a single bottle will come to, and any site quoting you a firm number is guessing.
A few details worth having:
- Proof of purchase is not required. It means a digital or paper receipt, an order confirmation, or the relevant part of an order history from a seller — anything that reasonably establishes that you bought the product and roughly when. Without it you are in the up-to-$7.00 tier.
- Vouchers do not expire, can be combined with other discounts and gift cards, are transferable, and do not have to be spent in one go. If the voucher fund is not used up, the administrator hands out more of them, capped at $50.00 per person.
- To claim both cash and a voucher you need at least one proof of purchase. Without a receipt, it is one or the other.
- Payment options are PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, a virtual prepaid card, or a paper check. Of those, the prepaid card is the one to think twice about — small balances strand on them, and a $7.00 payment that leaves $2.40 behind is a $4.60 payment. Bank-linked options and checks put the whole amount where you can use it.
Why you have to file this MG217 claim yourself
This is the part that makes this settlement different, and it is the reason this is an article rather than a claim Chimo files for members.
The rule appears in two places. The settlement agreement, repeated word for word in the claim form's general instructions, says:
Claim Forms must be submitted by Authorized Claimants themselves. Claim Forms submitted by claim aggregators or other bulk-filers will be rejected by the Settlement Administrator.
And item 6 of the certification you sign at the bottom of the form says:
I am submitting this Claim Form myself; no aggregator, bulk-filer, or other third-party has submitted it for me.
That second line matters more than the first. The whole certification is signed under penalty of perjury — you are signing your name to say the answers are true, which is what a claim form means by an attestation. If someone else sends the form in for you, that sentence is false on the day it is filed, and the administrator screens for exactly this: bulk aggregation review is part of its fraud checking.
So there is no service, ours included, that can put this claim in for you. Chimo files class action claims for members, and this one sits outside what any filing service is permitted to touch. Pointing you at the official form is the only useful thing anyone can do with it.
The rest of that certification is worth reading too. You are also certifying that you have not already had a full refund for the bottles you are claiming, and that nobody else has claimed the same purchases. Claim the number of bottles you are confident you bought. A smaller accurate claim gets paid; an inflated one risks being cut back or thrown out.
How to file your MG217 claim
Everything goes through the official site, www.mg217shampoosettlement.com/claim, or by mail to Lake Consumer Products Settlement, 1060 Broadway, Suite 308, Albany, NY 12204.
Have this ready before you open the form:
- Your name, mailing address, phone and email. The mailing address is where a paper check would go, so use the one you actually collect mail at.
- The notice ID number, if you got one. It appears on the email or postcard notice. If you never received a notice you can still claim without it.
- How many bottles you bought during the class period, which ones, roughly when, and where. Approximate dates are fine. The form asks who you bought from, so "Amazon", "Walgreens" or "CVS" is the level of detail wanted.
- Any receipts or order history you can find. Not required, and worth looking for anyway, because a receipt moves you from the up-to-$7.00 tier to the purchase price and lets you claim a voucher on top. Email is the fastest place to look — search your inbox for "MG217" — followed by the order history in any online account you bought from.
- How you want to be paid. Decide before you start so you are not picking under time pressure at the end.
Then sign and date it. If you are filing on paper, the administrator can require a signature in ink rather than a typed one, so sign it by hand and keep a copy of what you send.
What happens after you file
The court holds its final approval hearing at 11:00 a.m. on October 15, 2026, in Easton, Pennsylvania. Nobody has to attend.
| Date | What it is |
|---|---|
| September 24, 2026 | Claim, opt-out and objection deadline |
| October 15, 2026 | Final approval hearing |
If the court approves the settlement, eligible payments are sent once approval is final and any appeals are resolved. That last step is what makes the timing hard to predict — most settlements are not appealed, but a single appeal can add months, and no payment date has been published.
Two things to do now rather than later. Save your own confirmation — screenshot the page you get after you submit, and keep the confirmation email if one arrives, because a confirmation is not guaranteed. And put the final approval date in your calendar so you have a reason to check back on the settlement website rather than assuming silence means something went wrong.
If you do nothing, you stay in the class, you get nothing from the settlement, and you give up the right to sue Lake over the claims it resolves. Opting out is the reverse: nothing from the settlement, but you keep the right to bring your own case, and that request has to be postmarked by September 24, 2026.
How to check you are on the real MG217 settlement site
Settlement notices are one of the most copied formats in consumer fraud, because the real ones arrive unannounced and ask for personal details. Three checks separate the genuine site from a lookalike.
- The web address. The official one is https://www.mg217shampoosettlement.com. A close variant with extra words or a different ending is not it.
- What it asks for. The real claim form asks for your name, address, contact details, what you bought and how you want to be paid. It does not ask for your Social Security number, your bank login, or a payment of any kind. The settlement administrator is the firm a court appoints to process claims, and it is paid out of the settlement fund itself.
- The phone number. The administrator can be reached at 1-888-722-7084. If a site, email or caller gives you a different number for this settlement, the safe move is to close it and go to the address above instead.
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What Chimo does with settlements like this one
Chimo watches for settlements you are likely to qualify for and, for members, prepares, signs and mails the claim. Class action filing is included in a Chimo membership, and we do not take a percentage of what a class action pays out.
MG217 is the case that does not fit that model, and saying so is more useful than staying quiet about a claim our readers can file. The bar on outside filers is in the settlement documents, the administrator enforces it, and the certification puts the claimant's own signature on the line. That makes the official form the only route, and with days left on the deadline this is not the moment to be vague about it.
If you have run into a product problem that looks like it is happening to a lot of people — a charge nobody agreed to, a renewal that was never disclosed, a refund term that contradicts the advertising — send it to support@chimo.ai. Patterns are invisible from inside one complaint.
- Who is eligible for the MG217 shampoo settlement?
- Anyone who bought a MG217 coal tar shampoo — including MG217 Psoriasis Extra Strength, MG217 Psoriasis Medicated Conditioning 3% Coal Tar Shampoo and MG217 Dandruff Therapeutic Shampoo — in the United States or its territories between January 1, 2021 and June 25, 2026. You do not need to have been harmed by the product, and the class is not limited to any one state.
- How much does the MG217 settlement pay?
- With a receipt, the purchase price of each bottle. Without one, up to $7.00 a bottle. You can instead elect a $25.00 voucher toward MG217 products, or claim both cash and a voucher if you have at least one receipt. All of these amounts are adjusted up or down depending on how many valid claims come in, so no exact figure can be quoted before the claim period closes.
- What is the deadline to file a MG217 claim?
- September 24, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Online claims must be submitted and mailed claims postmarked by that date. The same date is the deadline to exclude yourself from the settlement or to file an objection with the court.
- Do I need a receipt for the MG217 settlement?
- No. Proof of purchase is optional, and without it you can claim up to $7.00 a bottle. A receipt, order confirmation or order history matters because it moves you up to the full purchase price, and it is required if you want to claim a cash payment and a voucher together.
- Can a claims service file the MG217 claim for me?
- No. The settlement agreement and the claim form both state that forms submitted by claim aggregators or bulk-filers will be rejected, and the certification you sign under penalty of perjury says you submitted the form yourself. It has to be filed directly at www.mg217shampoosettlement.com.
- What is the MG217 lawsuit about?
- The complaint in Pineda v. Lake Consumer Products alleges that the manufacturer did not follow the FDA's current Good Manufacturing Practices for these coal tar shampoos, and that the products contained undisclosed levels of benzene as a result. Lake denies the allegations and denies any wrongdoing, and the court has not ruled on who is right.
- When will MG217 settlement payments be sent?
- No payment date has been set. The court's final approval hearing is on October 15, 2026, and eligible payments are sent after approval becomes final and any appeals are resolved. Most settlements are not appealed, but an appeal can add months to the timeline.
- What happens if I do nothing?
- You remain in the class, receive no payment or voucher, and give up the right to sue Lake separately over the claims this settlement resolves. To keep the right to bring your own case you would have to exclude yourself in writing, postmarked by September 24, 2026.
