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Few Takers For Microsoft's Settlement Cash
Makarand writes "According to this article on SiliconValley.com very few claims have been received
to claim money from a Microsoft
antitrust settlement in California. Only about
4% of the estimated 14 million eligible California consumers have bothered to file a claim till now.
The deadline for filing claims is officially April 28 but is likely to be pushed back into May or June.
Either, consumers have found the claims process too confusing, time-consuming and discouraging
to keep them from making a claim or they are waiting till the last minute to file(like taxes).
According to the settlement one-third of the unclaimed money will be kept by Microsoft and the rest
will be given to Californian schools."
... to say that "the rest of the 'money' will go to California schools".
What will go to "California Schools" is 'boxes of Microsoft product', valued at the $-value for the settlement, by a team of accountants, lawyers, and auditors.
This settlement is a sham. It is nothing but an easy seeding program for Microsoft market-share harvests in the 6-month to 1-year time frame, among a vulnerable and naive market (education), and Microsoft know it.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Last I checked, between February 18, 1995 thru December 15, 2001 you were able to buy Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4 and NT5 (Aka Windows 2000). None of which have manditory registration.
As a result, Microsoft is completely incapable of having a record of who purchased their product.
Moreover, even if they did have such a list, they don't nessicarily have a list specifying the state in which the user resides, and as this rebate only applies to users in California...
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
Have you seen the claim form? My brother-in-law was mailed one because he actually registered a copy of Windows while he was living in California. It assigns a certain voucher value to each Microsoft product (something like Windows - $16, Office - $26, DOS - $13, I don't remember the exact values), and you can claim up to $100 worth of vouchers without any proof (i.e., product ID's or license keys). Then, if you have license keys, you can list those on the form and claim vouchers for those too.
Also, the vouchers you get are not for Microsoft products -- they're for any PC hardware or software. So once you get the vouchers, you can, for instance, buy a PC (for more than the total amount of the vouchers), then send the vouchers back to the claims adminstrator along with receipt and proof of purchase for the PC. Then they send you a check for the amount of the vouchers. (You can also use it for hardware/software you already bought, within a certain timeframe.)
It's a pain in the ass, of course, but you can actually get a fair amount of money back from them. Especially if, hypothetically, you claim a fictional combination of products which comes to exactly $100 (and don't need proof of purchase), then claim whatever additional products you can dig up license keys for (as long as you've got the CDs in their original cases or envelopes sitting around the house somewhere in boxes -- the CD cases usually have the license key on them.) If one were to do that, one might wind up getting $200-300 back from them.
I receieved a settlement letter regarding the case with North Carolina.
Basically, I had to take a day off work, go to the Courthouse in Raleigh, fill out several forms, and then wait about 6 months for a check for 10 dollars.
Parking all day downtown will cost about 10 dollars, so I didn't see this as 'useful'.
So I am not going to bother with all that nonsense.
Any wonder why I run Linux now? Any takers? Anyone?