Tramped to the mailbox today and found an envelope from Western Union stamped “important court papers enclosed”. Thought “what are they after me for?”
Opened said envelope to find four pages of 6-point type explaining that a class action suit has been brought against WU, apparently for fiddling exchange fees on international wire transfers. The class is everyone who made such a transfer to or from a lengthy list of countries between Jan. 1 '95 and Dec. 31, 2002. A settlement has been proposed and a hearing will be held in Brooklyn, NY on April 9, 2004 to approve or reject the proposed settlement. Apparently, having twice sent some money via WU to my ex in Switzerland, I am a member of the plaintiff class.
The amount proposed for settlement? $47.5 million American simoleans. How will the the settlement be distributed? Er, in the form of coupons. Coupons to be applied against future fees for Western Union international money transfers. One coupon awarded for every two transactions made during the term covered in the lawsuit.
Coupons worth four dollars each.
BTW, the attorneys of the Class Counsel, representing eight different firms, will split a payment for their services of $2.25 million, which they no doubt richly deserve for their diligence and sterling work, and which they helpfully mention will not be deducted from the Class award.
The notice cheerily adds that I’m have the right to hire an attorney to represent me if I wish, and of course I’m welcome to attend the hearing. Yup, hire a mouthpiece and fly from Houston to New York to see whether I get my four bucks or not. Naaah, thanks fellas, I’ll trust yer good for it.
Now that I’m about to be so flush, who can I wire some funds to with that four-buck coupon I’m gonna get?
Well, you can wire some ducats to me. But I don’t think that’s who you had in mind.
I once got a notice that I was in a class-action suit against Toshiba for a laptop I’d purchased. I would have gotten a coupon good for a hundred bucks or so off a new laptop. I didn’t bother; the thing worked just fine.
I recently was the benficiary of a class-action suit against my credit card company for failing to properly inform certain customers of their rights and privileges regarding the transfers of funds from one account to another, or from the same account to itself, or from an account with one provider to an account with a separate ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz…
OK, I didn’t read the whole thing. I got something like $1.98, and I’m sure some lawyers got far more than that. Yee haw.
The basic idea behind class-action lawsuits is sound - they provide a way for the “little guy” to tackle a big corporation. If each individual who’d been harmed by some nefarious deed by a corporation had to file his own lawsuit against the company, nothing would ever happen, because the cost of bringing suit would exceed the potential compensation. If XYZ Corp. screwed you out of $100, would you spend a few grand suing the bastards?
The problem, of course, is that the system is now being milked by lawfirms looking for something to keep themselves fat and happy. They end up “hunting” for class actions to pursue, as a means of generating income. The members of the class end up getting useless coupons. XYZ Corp. screwed you. Gee, aren’t you just delighted to be getting a $10 off coupon for your next happy shopping experience with XYZ?! And of course, XYZ isn’t too upset about handing out $10 million in coupons, because they know that no more than a handful of those coupons will actually get used.
There are always some class-action reform measures going on, but so far, no one has figured out how to avoid throwing out the baby with the bath water.
I wouldn’t mind the coupons so much if I could use them at XYZ’s competition, and XYZ HAD to honor the coupons. I think that would be a much fairer outcome, if XYZ can’t be made to cough up cash.
I really think that coupon settlements are a ripoff. I LIKE getting coupons when I give feedback to a company, and I plan to buy that product again. If a company really does me wrong badly once, though, I’m not likely to give them my business again. I believe in the old saying “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” I rarely give anyone or any company an opportunity to fool me twice.
I did bother. I got a $300 coupon to Toshiba’s online shop. So I got money cause Toshiba made crappy laptops…to buy more Toshiba stuff. Great! (I used it on a hub and the gateway for our LAN).
The best solution I’ve heard is this: lawyers and plaintifs should be compensated in the same currency. If the class members each get a $10 coupon, then the lawyers get $10,000,000 worth of coupons. If the lawyers want cash, the plaintifs get cash too.
I’m with Senor Lizardo on this. It burns my ass that Wynkyn, Blynkyn and Nod LLC get real cash money, whilst I, as the aggrieved party (who, admittedly, had no idea I was such until the envelope arrived in the mail) get a chit for the selfsame service that got the provider in hot water in the first place.
Ah, well, the letter sez the coupons are transferable, so maybe I can give it to some poor migrant worker who needs to wire funds to his sick granny in Peru, or something.
The real solution is to figure out a way to get judges to stop approving settlement agreements that result in the aggrieved parties getting wooden nickels.
I was apparently involved in a class action suit against Citibank about which I had not heard anything. Just Monday, I received my check. $0.17 - I’ll be embarrassed to cash it, but I will.
So, what ever happened to that RIAA class action settlement - we (those of us stupid enough to actually submit our name on that web site they had) were supposed to get 12.00 or so (in some form of actual payment, not more crappy coupons for more crappy CDs).
'Course, I’ve seen none of it… :mad:
My husband and I both got checks worth several cents from citi card.
The problem is that my husband has never had a citi credit card. He has only ever used his federal credit union debit card and credit card.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I was a member of Progressive Auto Insurance (before my then boyfriend convinced me that I had good insurance and could therefore get a better insurance company) :D, also involved in a class action suit. I received massive amounts of paper work as to who and what, and where I could attend the hearing. I could contest the amount or do nothing, all very informative.
The citi-bank ‘class action’ suite came with none of that information, just a “check” for a few cents and a letter. Can this be a fraud?
If this is the one you’re thinking of, here’s the latest, from August:
Basically, they have to wait for all the appeals to be sorted out before they send out the checks. Or the check to charity, if the per-person amount is less than a few bucks.
No, it’s real, though it’s surprisingly difficult to Google anything but a bunch of blogs.
Apparently the settlement is $18 million cash (for 23 million cardholders), $18 million “other restitution”, and $7.2 million for the ambulance chasers - er, I mean, lawyers. It involves AT&T Universal as well as Citibank.
How about if no lawyer can receive more in fees than his client? Client meaning any one member of the class, not the class as a whole.
