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Class Action Suit Goodies Await Tech Users
jfruh writes "Did you buy an Acer laptop with Vista and less than 1 GB of RAM? The company has a thumb drive it would like to send you. Did you get an unwanted text from Papa John's? The company would like to make it up with you with $50 worth of free pizza. These and other little rewards are available as a result of class action lawsuits that have wound their ways through the court systems and now, years later, are paying off for very large groups of tech users." I wonder how many USB drives the lawyers took as their share.
It sounds more like these settlements are paying off for the defendants. Papa John's pulled off an especially neat trick there, getting the court to accept pizza the customers don't want in lieu of statutory damages.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
These aren't the results of judgments, they're the rewards for settlements. So if you ever wondered why the end result is so awful it's because the actual money goes to the lawyers while the people for which the lawsuit was intended to provide justice get cheap plastic kazoos. This is supposed to be okay, though, because "class action lawsuits are intended to punish companies, not restore damages." The best part is that by accepting your cheap plastic kazoo you're also signing away any other legal recourse you may have had.
40%
Acers free thumb drive will be factored into 1q2014 quarterly profit and expenditures accordingly. it will be reflected in the price of the $next_Acer_laptop
$50 in free pizza at Papa Johns might be used by President John Schnatter as damage control for his recent plan to raise the price of his food based on the healthcare reform act. then again he might suddenly decide to decrease the size of a pizza, or the amount of topping, or the quality, or both.
tl;dr: at no point does your class action windfall guarantee companies wont try to fuck you in the future in pursuit of the same greed that landed them in court the first time. its most ethical to not participate in class action skull duggery and simply act as a responsible consumer. maybe consider the local pizzaria next time, or pick up some ingredients at the local market and make one. laptops from thinkpenguin or system76 are also pretty good too, and im sure there are a few other places willing to make you a windows laptop that wont try to screw you out of a component.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I was a bit confused since I was certain the minimum requirement was 512mb. Did some research and figured it out:
They pretty much never lead to anything but a payday for lawyers, and an almost insulting token gift (if even that) for the plaintiffs. At least the Apple one sounds good for those who were denied, but how many people still have texts from that long ago to prove Papa John's sent you a text?
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
If you purchased an eMachines computer with a floppy drive way back in the late 90s, you can get either $62.50 in cash, or $365 worth of Gateway or Acer stuff from their refurb outlet.
http://www.emachinesfloppydisksettlement.com/CaseInfo.aspx?pas=EMS
I'd forgotten I ever bought an eMachine until I got the notice last month.
I know a lot of us have heard or seen the "NSA box" in our closets, but now it's official:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order
Off-topic, I know, but this one is boring. (Everyone already knows class action suits screw consumers.)
The point of a class action lawsuit isn't, unfortunately, to compensate the members of the class. The point of a class action lawsuit is that there are too many people who suffered minor damages to really be able to logistically handle that.
The primary point of a class action lawsuit isn't to "fight for the little guy," it is to punish companies that do wrong. If lawyers end up making $2 billion off a lawsuit, well, that's $2 billion out of the company's coffers. And before you go spouting off about how ultimately they pass that cost on to customers, maybe they do, but if so, that puts them at a disadvantage compared to other companies. Or put another way, if Domino's is giving their customers good quality pizza while Papa John's is skimping because they are trying to pass a $2 billion lawsuit judgment on to their customers, they'll lose market share. But I digress...
Anyway, I don't necessarily agree that the lawyers should make so much off of a class action lawsuit, although they really should make a lot, since they're handling the details of compensation which costs a lot more than most people think. What I'd like to see is some kind of public fund set up for money like this to go into, such as to build parks or something, so that the end effect of punishing the companies is maintained but the incredible amount of time, effort, and money that goes towards mailing a few people checks for a buck or two isn't wasted. At least that way, you also avoid the problem that class action payouts usually aren't that high since most eligible claimants won't bother to jump through the hoops to get their judgment.
He can stuff his pizza, and I don't mean the crust.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/01/14/pizza-papa-john-schnatter/1566364/
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They did
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/06/06/0140252/verizon-ordered-to-provide-all-customer-data-to-nsa
Several hours ago. That's when:
Verizon Ordered To Provide All Customer Data To NSA
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday June 06, 2013 @12:27AM
from the do-you-hear-what-I-hear dept.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/06/06/0140252/verizon-ordered-to-provide-all-customer-data-to-nsa
When is SlashDot going to post the Verizon story?
I know a lot of us have heard or seen the "NSA box" in our closets, but now it's official:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order
Off-topic, I know, but this one is boring. (Everyone already knows class action suits screw consumers.)
You must have been asleep and missed it. This was the first story posted today, 27 minutes after midnight:
Verizon Ordered To Provide All Customer Data To NSA
Posted by samzenpus on 12:27 AM June 6th, 2013
Go to the front page and scroll down a bit, difficult as that apparently is. You should see the story you were hoping for.
When? They published it over eight hours ago, Swifty.
The primary point of a class action lawsuit isn't to "fight for the little guy," it is to punish companies that do wrong.
This is a useful purpose, but one that could be served just as well by fining the companies in question real money and directing it to some constructive destination determined by the court. There is no need to allow for the blatant enrichment of lawyers as the primary beneficiaries of such cases, which from an outsider's point of view seems to be the norm in US class actions.
The point of a class action lawsuit is that there are too many people who suffered minor damages to really be able to logistically handle that.
Perhaps it would be appropriate to require a failed defendant to compensate the individuals to a fair extent in any case. If the overheads of doing so are absurdly disproportionate, it will serve as a very practical punishment and a reminder of just how many people were harmed even in a small way.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Anyone who bought Vista should get a compensation.
"I won a class action lawsuit against Acer and all I got was this stupid flash drive."
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
But in order to get any of this you'll need to provide us with extensive information which will be used for marketing purposes, and sign away some other rights.
Most importantly, these 'settlements' amount to trivial amounts, and no real admission of guilt ... gee, a whole 16GB USB stick for selling a laptop which is patently not suited for the claimed purposes, several years later when you can buy one at a gas station for $10. That makes up for selling a shitty product in the first place.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The Acer settlement (and all the others mentioned here, if I had to guess) is for US residents only. It's too bad this couldn't have been mentioned in the summary, the linked article, or even the front page for the settlement.
Are the /. editors yet unaware that the majority of its readership lives outside the US?
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
Papa John's pizza needs to be hit with another class-action lawsuit. I've witnessed something quite illegal - here in California, delivery drivers have $1 taken off of every credit card-paid delivery they make where the tip received is over $1.95. That's a violation of California Labor Code 351.
Might as well keep suing ol Schnatter until he's out of business permanently.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Papa John's stop free pizza and give healthcare to your workers. Any ways the big 3 all suck. Lot's of good small chains in the Chicago area.
The first class action I got involved in was pretty decent. A replacement CD-writer for one that died early. The replacement wasn't SCSI like the original but fair enough. I'd bought the original one used anyway.
The last couple that have come in my mailbox though were just stupid. For trivial things that were nobody's fault and were just a waste of time and resources to take through the courts. They went straight in the trash.
What I would like to see a class action for is the broken GPS on the Galaxy S that I carried for 3 years. Total rip-off and Samsung stonewalled anyone trying to find out what the issue was.
In a market where there are parity products, such as that of pizzas, the customer has choice.
What about in the realm of pharmaceuticals?
What if BigPharmaBrand does something shady and agrees to give people PMS medications as compensation? Roughly half of potential victims would have no use for the medications, and there's probably a law preventing them from reselling the product.
Also, if BigPharmaBrand patented the only safe chemical that can be used to treat PMS problems, then the cost absolutely gets passed on to the consumer. They simply raise their prices by (cost of judgement / projected sales over desired time period). If you want the medication, you pay for it. Otherwise, you go without it and suffer like a cavewoman.
Since I'm a programmer of secure systems, consider this abuse case:
I write banking software for an evil corporation (started and run by my brother). My brother adds a "feature" that withdraws one dollar from every account holder's balance and deposits it in to the corporation's account. That money is then spent on software development (mostly paid out to me).
Now, I'm rich and many, many people are slightly inconvenienced.
The company has to provide its services to customers for free for 1 month. It costs them virtually nothing since the software and hardware are already bought and paid for.
The company has been "punished", and all the people who suffered a loss are--although not monetarily compensated--avenged by having the evil corporation lose out on its revenues.
My brother does not go to jail. ...cContrast this with a bank robbery.
My brother robs a bank, and buys a used car from me for 20 million dollars.
My brother goes to jail. I lose my money. And my car.
Why is corporate crime acceptable--or at least not subjected to equitable punishments?
> Did you buy an Acer laptop with Vista and less than 1 GB of RAM?
Um, no, because I'm not an idiot.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I received an email a week ago about a settlement on optical drives. Apparently it is about drive manufactures colluding to keep the disc drive prices artificially high. The email was sparse on details of the settlement and did not have details on claim amounts or how to redeem yet.
The question I had was how they determine the amount. The settlement includes PC component drives and consumer electronics devices that have drives built into them. As someone who has built a personal computer and purchased two blu-ray players in the specified period I would think I'm entitled to three times the settlement amount.
I bought one of these budget Acer computers a couple years ago because I needed something cheap to take with me to class. I knew full well that the RAM included would not be enough to run Vista with, and that was okay with me, as completely wiping the drive and installing a perfectly good copy of XP only took an hour or so. It's been a reliable machine ever since with only 512 megs of ram. Now I get a free upgrade for it rather than having to pay a few bucks to get actual ram for it. Works for me. I still won't be using Vista on it, tho.
Nintendo did this a long time ago. Instead of paying money, Nintendo passed out "coupons" for games. So this is nothing new.
My wife used to take a prescription drug for anxiety which was marketed as having no withdrawal side effects. That wasn't the case and some people filled a class action lawsuit. She did have a very hard time going off the drug and filled out the paperwork when she was notified. We've all gotten those class action lawsuit letters at some point and they usually don't amount to anything. Fast forward about half a year later she gets the mail and there is a check in there for 11k. I didn't even know that kind of stuff really happened. I wonder how much the lawyers made on that one. :/