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If You Owned a PC With a DVD Drive You Might Be Able To Claim $10 (theverge.com)
If you owned a PC with a DVD drive more than 10 years ago, you're probably owed $10. From a report on The Verge: A class-action lawsuit is now accepting claims after Sony, NEC, Panasonic, and Hitachi-LG were accused of inflating the prices of optical drives sold to PC makers like Dell and HP. If you bought a PC with a DVD drive between April 1st 2003 and December 31st 2008, you'll be able to claim $10 for each drive as part of the class-action lawsuit. It appears you don't need to provide any proof of purchase -- the settlement administrators are simply collecting names, email addresses, and the number of drives owned at the moment. You'll need to submit a claim before July 1st, and the money won't be released until other defendants in the litigation have settled.
I don't remember how many drives I had back then. At least 5-6 from owned systems and ones built for others.
That appears to be part of the point of this class action -- Optical drives were absolutely ubiquitous, and the lawsuit is constructed to send a strong anti-trust message. By fixing prices, manufacturers created a huge artificial cost across the IT spectrum -- from individual home users to enterprise IT purchasing. And since the 2000s, IT spending is a non-trivial part of individual consumers' and business' budgets. The point is to make them feel the pain over price-fixing of a very common and often-replaced device.
But you can give me $10 anyway.
In the end, especially in light of the "no proof of purchase required", everyone will probably get $1.43 per drive, or less. Meanwhile, those driving the class action suit will pull in $25M, or more.
You'll need to submit a claim before July 1st, and the money won't be released until other defendants in the litigation have settled.
It sounds like your chances of actually getting any money are slim. Probably all this does is raise the damages so the lawyers get a bigger payday.
Residency requirement. FTFA: Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, or Wisconsin.
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
everybody else gets $10. It's not even worth my time to file.
I put a pretty high value on my time, but it just took me about a minute to potentially claim $30. I would have to value an hour of my time at about $2000 for this to not be worth the time to file. Although if I have to cash a physical check the math changes dramatically.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Great! Now, we just need 374,999,999 more posts from the rest of the computer owners.
I don't remember either. Probably in the millions.
Just like Volkswagen. US Customers get millions, and the European customers still pay a thousand per year in tax for having a Diesel car, without seeing any of it back. The sue-culture is apparently good for something...
My Newegg order history shows 8 total DVD drives. Plus one laptop with a DVD. Dang,within the years 2003-2008... reduces it to 2 drives, one laptop with a DVD. I'm sure there were more dammit... Then again it doesn't say I have to prove it. I bought some locally from the local computer store. If I got $30 from these guys I would be shocked.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
While that's true, it's not necessarily *bad*. Without class actions, or if class actions weren't lucrative for the lawyers who organize them, the companies would just get away with it. The lawyers basically a reward for going after companies v who screw consumers over, with sufficient investigation to prove in court what the companies did and how consumers were harmed.
It's not a perfect system, but I'd rather have (proper) class actions than not have them. When a company screws me out of $5 or $10 I'd rather a lawyer go after them (and get the $5) then just let the company get away with screwing epople2 over.
Texas is one of the least-taxed states. We have no state income tax (on individuals) and reasonable sales taxes. Texas total state tax burden is 7.6%. Compare California, Wisconsin, and llinois at about 11%. Some states are 12%. Only Alaska is less than 7.1%.
https://taxfoundation.org/stat...
* I can't believe I got that all out before laughing at myself...
Also, this is a good little read about banking apps in general...
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2016/02/mobile-payments
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
no kidding, this was the easiest 60$ i probably won't ever get. but if it does... at some point this year... i will be very confused for about 10 seconds and then shout yolo all the way to my mobile banking app.
I think i did not. Back then i only bought used thinkpads, so i did not by that drive from a manufacturer - and probably these were made before 2003 (I anyway used mainly external USB-dvd drive). Next step (around 2008) was to buy laptops without optical drives embedded (i had an external one+did not see the need for installing OSses-1G USB drives worked fine for debian/ubuntu).
Since "you don't need to provide any proof of purchase" the headline should be:
Here's how to get $10 free!
At the moment I have about a dozen.
Oh, that's not what you meant? Learn to fucking write then: " ... at the moment, the settlement administrators are simply collecting names, email addresses, and the number of drives owned [at the time]".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
>> everybody else gets $10
I just got my check from the Wells Fargo settlement. It was $0.27, for the trouble of having to chase down a credit card opened in my name and a checking account opened with no money and a bunch of $6/mo "maintenance fees" I had to fight.
$10...isn't that bad, considering.
PSAW!
Everybody knows diesel DVD players are less noisy on SONAR than nuclear DVD players.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
You don't have a bank that let's you deposit a check by phone? Even my local credit union supports that.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
But yet writing about your feelings about it and submitting your comment to Slashdot for $0.00 IS worth it?
You don't have a bank that let's you deposit a check by phone? Even my local credit union supports that.
Honestly my wife deposits all our checks and I've never even looked into what tech our bank supports.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Here is the only link that matters. Pointing to the Verge is pointless.
Last year I got a check for the DRAM Price Fixing settlement. Many years ago, I got a check for the audio CD settlement.
I suspect that I'll get my $80 for this one. It'll probably take a 12-18 months but money is money.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I put a pretty high value on my time, but it just took me about a minute to potentially claim $30.
That meant you would have to have the record of purchase with specific detail (e.g. receipt + computer spec) as proof too. I doubt that there are many people who still hold on the evidence for that long because their computers would have been purchased 9~14 years ago...
What do I have to do to get my payment?
File a claim online or by mail by July 1, 2017. The simple online claim form only takes 3-5 minutes for most individuals. Claims may be submitted by mail to In re ODD Products Indirect Purchaser Litigation, P.O. Box 43424, Providence, RI 02940-3424. We highly recommend that you submit the claim online to receive expedited service on July 1, 2017 or soon thereafter.
After July 1, 2017, an email will be sent to your account on file with instructions on how to electronically receive your payment via PayPal, Google Wallet, Amazon Balance, and others.
Plaintiffs have also collected direct contact information for class members and anticipate making reasonable attempts to distribute monies to class members where an address is available. This method is not guaranteed, however, and to ensure payment class members should submit a claims form.
How did you find out about those?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Go to schwab.com , register for a checking account, and wait for all of the stuff to arrive in the mail. 100% free checking, no fees, and you can deposit your 10$ check via your phone.
It's 2017. Two thousand fucking seventeen and in America, we still use checks.
In every other developed country in the world, you put down your bank and account number, possibly a TAN number if you're in an EU nation, and a persons name and you can send them money. For individuals it's always fee free, works with any bank and. appears within 24 hours (same day if same bank).
No no, Paypal is not good enough. Neither is Square. Those are closed, private companies. Every other nation has direct, person-to-person transfer, mandated by their government.
In the US, you must still print and photo a check.
Same here!
I lent nearly $1,000 to deadbeats on Prosper who never paid back a dime.
I got payments from 2 separate class action suits against Prosper since then, but both were for under $10.
The part that angers me the most is that Prosper was SUPPOSED to turn those debts over to your choice of 2 collection agencies they supposedly employed. I selected one but never heard a THING again. For all I know, they never even really sent anything to collections at all? How would you know as an individual lender?
It would be interesting to compare costs of different systems. In the US, state Attorney's General offices handle some of these things, the FTC handles some, etc. Each spends resources (money) to do so and each collects fines from time to time. Here, when the Attorney General and the regulatory agencies let things fall through the cracks, any concerned citizen can address via a class action, and the bigger the problem, the bigger is the incentive to organize a class action.
I haven't seen any studies, I would like to, but my guess is that the three systems together may be more effective than any one alternative.
I vaguely remember buying somewhere between 2 and 500,000 PCs in that time period. To be safe, I'll claim the 500,000.
I agree. Last one I did was the LCD monitor one. Got around 100 bucks for doing nothing more than filling out a web form...about a minute of time. If this one pans out, it's another easy 90 bucks or so for me. I'll spend a minute of time, to get easy money. May not be much, but it's more than I had.
If you mean allowing businesses to /draw/ on your bank account w/ ACH, then yes, that's broken as hell and I won't go near it.
If you mean having a business /deposit/ to your bank account, then I don't see what security you need on it?
I don't either. I wrote down 2 machines and 3 external drives because I can actually prove that I own that many of them, not because I'm sure how many I bought. I know it was a lot more than that.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Of the FOUR class action suits I've "subscribed" to in the past, I've received exactly ZERO dollars.
Because, frankly, once the lawyers have your name and can make their money, there is no real motivation for them to actually obtain anything for you.
I refuse this sort of thing now on principal.
my state is not listed.
I don't remember distinctly but probably from Slashdot articles.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano