I don’t recall the exact amount, but I received north of $25k as my part of a settlement because my employer and other tech companies engaged in anticompetitive behavior designed to suppress salaries in my industry.
I have received 4 or 5 small (< $20) over the past 10 years or so. Back in the late 80’s I was part of a class action lawsuit against a union. I went to work at a small shipyard in Tacoma, Washington after being laid off from a big airplane company. Part of the requirements to be hired was to be a member of one of 3 unions, a ship builder union, an electricians union or a pipe fitters union. I joined the electricians union and agreed to pay $100 a month towards the $1500 membership fee plus $110 a month for union dues. Less than 60 days later, the ship yard shut down and basically went out of business. My final paycheck was for $36 for almost 100 hours of work. The rest was taken by the union for the membership fee and monthly dues. Because I still had 13 months of payments for the membership, they also took 13 months worth of monthly dues.
I was among 80 or so folks that showed up at the union hall to complain, we were told too bad and to leave or we would be arrested for trespassing. A few months later I got a letter from a law firm, they wanted to know if I wanted to join a class action lawsuit against the union. I agreed figuring I might get a few bucks back. A few years later I got a bit on the evening news about the unions for the ship yard being sued and losing, they had to reimburse all the money taken plus an additional $1000 each to cover expenses we may might have had from the illegal withholdings from our last paychecks. That wasn’t the end of getting screwed though. Even thought the settlement included a nice chunk of cash for the law firm, they withheld 15% of each settlement check for a processing fee.
For any particular person it is very unlikely their data would ever be misused. I think it was solely about medical data, not credit card info or Social Security numbers. It is the type of problem that could be found in all sorts of commercial web applications. The Home Depot system might unintentionally allow someone to find out how many sheets of plywood you purchased recently. That’s not actionable to my knowledge. Medical software has the added burden of HIPAA regulations. Simply including your name and a medical test result in a web page where unauthorized viewing was possible would be a HIPAA violation.
Hmpf. I only got $3.81.
I got about $800 from the Volkswagen Oil sludge settlement.
I used to work as a stock broker for an online discount firm and I hated those class action suits against all the dot bomb companies, took me forever to dig up old records for customers just so they could get $3.14 six months later
My lil brother got a settlement years ago from whoever made his car (maybe Kia?). They’d misrepresented the MPG IIRC. He loved the car and had put high mileage on it, so he got a pile of cash. He put the money toward a new car along with his trade and came away very pleased.
I’m on this website’s mailing list, and I’m qualified for only a small percentage of them but it’s kind of nice to get a surprise check now and then.
Even before I signed up for this, I got a very surprise check from AOL for $100 for a class action suit I have no recollection of signing up for.
Well said.
Another way to say this is the government has effectively outsourced the policing of consumer protection laws & regs to the class action plaintiff’s bar.
If we had a well-funded government agency that would act as soon as the first report of e.g. inappropriate cable fees came in, we would not need the seedier and more lottery-like process of most class action lawsuits.
Imagine the FBI raiding Comcast HQ with the same gusto as they invade some organized crime figures’ hideouts.
Pre-cisely!
Back in the early 80’s I got $100 from an action regarding a piece of exercise equipment.
I received around $800 total over two settlements regarding e-book price fixing, in the form of Amazon credits. I buy lots of e-books.
When I read the terms of the settlement, it said the credits were supposed to be for e-books only, but I got regular Amazon credits I could use for anything. At time, I remember thinking that this seemed like a material breech of the settlement but IANAL.
I got $12 from some shampoo company a while back. Something about how they didn’t have sulfur in their formula but they did.
Ker-ching !!
I live within 1km of that !
Hmmm … that looks slightly more serious than mine !
I don’t think i’ll bother !
I’ve gotten a couple of minor payouts. One from Western Digital drives and another from AMD. Both were less than $40 IIRC.
I’ve got a handful of minor payments over the years.
But the biggest one was for a cruise line. They called me offering a cruise. I knew it was a scam and spent about 20 minutes playing them, including looking up what people said about them online (“Well, you’ll always get a few disgruntled customers”) before getting tired of the game and hanging up.
I was alerted to a class action suit and signed on. They evidently broke some rules by making the call. Eventually, I got a check for a couple of hundred dollars.
The first installment.
It eventually went to $800 or so.
Were they sending out real physical checks back then? I just received a prepaid virtual credit card for $11.42. It can only be used to make a purchase for that amount or less and cannot be combined with another card. What a joke.
I just got another few dollars as well, but it was in the form of an Amazon gift card.
I’m assuming when they say ‘it can’t be combined with another card’ they mean you can’t combine two of those prepaid cards, not that you can’t use multiple cards for a single purchase. So long as it has a Visa/MC/Amex etc logo on it, you can use it like any other credit/debit card. The hardest part is going to be finding an online website that allows you to split a purchase amongst multiple cards. No big deal in a brick and mortar store, but not a common option online.
In fact, it might be easiest to use it to buy an amazon gift card.
They will cut you a check, or do an instant Amazon gift card. I chose Amazon.
I just got another $7.62 from them last week, and used it just now on Amazon.