Safeway customers in Oregon who used a Safeway Club Card to buy meat during a sales promotion in 2015 and 2016 might have recently received a $200 check as part of a legal settlement.

BAKER CITY — Kisha Dunlap wasn’t expecting the $200 check in the mail.

And at first she didn’t think it was legitimate.

“It seems crazy,” was Dunlap’s first reaction when she slid the check from the envelope earlier this week.

Dunlap, who grew up in Haines and now lives in Fruitland, Idaho, likely wasn’t alone in reacting with skepticism when she received a $200 check as a settlement in a class-action lawsuit against Safeway.

But the lawsuit was real.

And so are the checks.

A court approved the $107 million settlement on July 25, 2023, according to the official website for the suit, www.safewaybogoclassaction.com.

Dunlap said she checked the website on Tuesday, Oct. 3. She planned to cash her check.

Dunlap said she vaguely recalled a notice in the mail, more than a month ago, about a class-action suit.

It wasn’t familiar, so she tossed out the notice.

Dunlap said she probably would have trashed the check, too, had it been for just a few dollars, as is typical with class-action settlements.

“But at $200, that’s actually worth looking into,” she said.

The class-action suit was filed in 2016 in Multnomah County Circuit Court. It was prompted by buy-one-get-one-free meat sales at Safeway stores in Oregon. The plaintiffs claimed that the stores, owned by Albertsons, boosted meat prices during the sales, offsetting the claimed savings to customers.

“(Consumers) are paying more per pound than regularly-priced meat, and they are buying more meat in order to obtain the illusory ‘free’ product,” the lawsuit stated. “These ‘free’ sales constitute unfair and deceptive practices.”

The lawsuit listed as an example boneless pork chops, which typically sold for $4.49 per pound but were listed, under the promotion, at $12.99 per pound.

According to the lawsuit website, to be eligible for compensation, customers had to use a Safeway Club Card to buy meat under the promotion between May 4, 2015, and Sept. 7, 2016, at a Safeway store in Oregon.

The class-action lawsuit is limited to Oregon. Albertsons, as the corporate owner of Safeway stores, did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the lawsuit settlement.