lol, I'm rich!!

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Sometime after I left Maine more than a dozen years ago I was sent a check for $20 from some class action suit I had forgotten about. I found it when I checked the state's unclaimed funds database on a whim last year. Yowee, free money! But when I signed up to get it they required that I upload a scan of a recent bill from my current location to verify my identification. Turns out the scan would *not* go through, no matter what I tried. So, I gave up. It just wasn't enough to continue to bother.

-BB

[Andre1969]

Years ago, we got a voucher for owning one of GM's infamous "saddle-tank" trucks. This one was a 1985 C10 Silverado. Of course, it was made "infamous", thanks to Dateline NBC, who put explosive model rockets under a fuel tank and set it to blow in a staged crash.

Now yeah, the trucks would blow up in an accident. If you hit them hard enough. But, it actually took a very serious accident. They didn't blow up like a Pinto would...and even a Pinto wasn't nearly as explosion-prone as Mother Jones would like you to believe.

Anyway, I remember the voucher was for $1000 off the purchase price, if we bought a new GM vehicle within a certain amount of time. Then it dropped to $500, and I think it then dropped to $250, and eventually expired. I can't remember if part of the stipulation was trading in the old truck or not. But, at the time, GM had nothing that was enticing enough to make us fork over a bunch of money for a new vehicle, just to get $1000 off.

I can't remember when the Dateline fiasco was exactly...I want to say 1993? Anyway, while the truck was exonerated, I thought it was actually pretty nice of GM to offer that voucher, even though we never used it. I wonder if very many people actually used those vouchers?

[MRG]

I've never had anything worth more than 27 cents.

A couple years ago a former coworker told me that I needed to sign up for a suite involving Megacorp's handling of a profit sharing account I had left behind to allow penalty free withdrawal from 55-59.5. During this time the fund dropped big time, over 25% by my memory.

I said no thanks until she told me the former CEO, CFO, and other senior management were present in the meeting she attended. This February I received a 10k settlement from the fund company and still have an arbitration against Megacorp for their lack of fiduciary oversight. Hopefully they make me whole. Sadly several hundred people will receive the lion's share of any monies and 10k people will get 47 dollars apiece.

[wmc1000]

Our biggest win was from a 1999 Kia Sportage that my youngest DD drove. One winter day I pulled into the driveway and noticed that the gas tank had a slow drip due to rust! Took it to my local mechanic who looked at it and said to go to a dealer because there was a possible warranty issue on some models.

Of course the dealer input the vehicle info and said it wouldn't be covered and cost $1200 to replace. Fast forward a year or so later and we got a notice in the mail that the warranted vehicles to be covered had been extended if we can provide proof of replacement.

Sent in a copy of the invoice for the repair and got a letter back from Kia that it didn't show the reason for the replacement was due to a rust issue!

Called the dealer and relayed the info and was told they would get back to me. Later that day I received a call from the dealer that the service mechanic who worked on our car had added the rust info to the back on the invoice and they faxed a copy to me.

I mailed it to Kia and about 60 days later we got a $1200 check in the mail! Whoo Hoo we were rich!

[Time2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beldar Save it and frame it. I received an Army payroll check for "exactly 2 cents" back in the '80s after they reconciled some travel and allowance discrepancies It's under glass along side my commission. I just couldn't bring myself to cash it. _B

You, are exactly why the government can't get the books to balance!

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beldar I received an Army payroll check for "exactly 2 cents" back in the '80s after they reconciled some travel and allowance discrepancies

I once ordered something from J.C. Whitney (car parts) and there was some confusion related to the shipping cost or tax (I forget which).

The next month they sent me a bill for $0.00 so I laughed and ignored it.

Got the same invoice for the next two months, and the last one came with a letter warning me that if it wasn't paid they would send it to a collection agency.

I gave up and mailed them a check for $0.00 and never heard from them again. Only cost me a stamp, but shows how things could slip through the cracks back in the early days of billing computers.

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beldar Save it and frame it. I received an Army payroll check for "exactly 2 cents" back in the '80s after they reconciled some travel and allowance discrepancies It's under glass along side my commission. I just couldn't bring myself to cash it. A lot of laughs along the way. _B

Are you sure that wasn't a very clever request for you to comment on your experience?

-BB

[Turbo29]

I actually had one class action pay off. Owned a VW diesel that was part of the Volkswagen emissions scandal. For a 9yr old vehicle worth about $8000 I got $14400 (blue book value at the time the scandal hit plus $5k for being defrauded). Then a few months later a check for $1000 from Bosch (injection system manufacturer) and then a few months after that a check for $600 (my state's Atty. General sued them).

I was shocked. I figured that when the lawyers were done I'd get nothing but a coupon for free floor mats.

[Luvtoride]

Earlier this year I joined a class action suit for customers who bought contact lenses from an online contact lens site (very reputable and still around). It was easy to sign up and I didn't even need to provide my prior receipts.
In August I got an email that asked for my Venmo user name as settlement was going to be deposited shortly.
In early September, my Venmo account was credited with $214 by the class action name as my settlement payment for this suit. I was shocked!

[SecondCor521]

I'm waiting on my Blue Cross / Blue Shield settlement money before I plan my next trip to Monaco.

Other than that, I guess I'm technically in a small class action suit. A company I used to work for was cash strapped so offered to pay me in company stock. Lo and behold, the company got acquired years later, and I got paid about 2x for my shares (which qualified for Section 1202 treatment!) Even later, there was apparently some misbehavior on the part of the acquiring company, so we former shareholders are suing them. It's supposed to go to trial next year unless a settlement can be reached. I'll probably get somewhere between 1 cent and $15K.

[aja8888]

Last month, I got a $20 check in the mail from the Memorial Hospital system here in Houston. No description of what it is for, just a check. I've always had Medicare and full plan F Medigap insurance so I never paid a cent to the hospital for anything I had done there (two hip replacements, SVT ablation, numerous shots, physicals, etc.)

So I have no idea why I received a $20 check.....and I am not going to try to find out where it came from as calling a huge hospital system will get you nowhere on something like this.

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 Last month, I got a $20 check in the mail from the Memorial Hospital system here in Houston. No description of what it is for, just a check. I've always had Medicare and full plan F Medigap insurance so I never paid a cent to the hospital for anything I had done there (two hip replacements, SVT ablation, numerous shots, physicals, etc.) So I have no idea why I received a $20 check.....and I am not going to try to find out where it came from as calling a huge hospital system will get you nowhere on something like this.

They probably think that between you and your insurance, you overpaid a net of $20 on your bill with them, and they eventually refunded it to you.

I agree with not trying to figure out why, but I bet that's probably why.

[JRon]

We just received a check for $48.72 from GM for a class action lawsuit over the switchblade key for my wife’s 2012 Camaro. Some people claimed the key was too long or something and could catch your knee and shut the car off while driving.

Years ago, GM sent us a recall notice to get the key replaced with a standard key. We liked the switchblade key and didn’t see a reason to replace it so we kept it till we sold the car. Now, years later, we get to go out to dinner and get part of it paid for.

[Golden sunsets]

We have signed on to 3 Class Action Lawsuits. 1) Mercedes Benz having to do with airbags. We got a check last week for $878.75 for a 10 year old car that we sold 18 months ago. 2) Hertz for screwing Mexican car rental users on failure to notify in advance, the cost of mandatory liability insurance and then charging inflated foreign currency exchange rates. ( I remember well both of these unfair practices at the time and stopped using them.) We will get back $988 early next year which is more than our rental costs for those years before we switched providers. 3) $100 from Mass General for a "cookie" dispute, that I don't quite understand. So we've done well on these Class Action Lawsuits recently. Just think how much the lawyers on both sides made.

Oh and I love the fact that we were contacted by the Settlement Agent in each case and didn't need to provide much of any paperwork; just fill out a form. Got to love that.

[Winemaker]

DW and I have found anywhere from 20 cents to 20 dollars in change left in rental units on the floor for the past 22 years. No, we never reported it as income.

[PatrickA5]

I've been part of a SEC settlement, so it wasn't a class action lawsuit exactly. I ended up getting more than $19,000 that I had lost in my 401K after buying my company's stock based on a "strong buy" recommendation from an analyst about a week before the company declared bankruptcy. This was back in the Enron, Worldcom, etc days when certain analyst were touting companies based on basically nothing. The particular analyst that was touting my company (and others) apparently did so to get the recommendation from the CEO (of a different company) in order to get his 4 year old son into a prestigious preschool in New York city.

I couldn't believe it when I got the check.

[JoeWras]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luvtoride Earlier this year I joined a class action suit for customers who bought contact lenses from an online contact lens site (very reputable and still around). It was easy to sign up and I didn't even need to provide my prior receipts. In August I got an email that asked for my Venmo user name as settlement was going to be deposited shortly. In early September, my Venmo account was credited with $214 by the class action name as my settlement payment for this suit. I was shocked!

That kind of speed is unheard of for a class action. I wonder if it was an out of court settlement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JRon We just received a check for $48.72 from GM for a class action lawsuit over the switchblade key for my wife’s 2012 Camaro. Some people claimed the key was too long or something and could catch your knee and shut the car off while driving.

Yep, same class action as me, different subclass.

[Mulligan]

I get it though. St. Louis won almost $800 million settlement with NFL last week. Lawyers got almost $300 million leaving StL about $500 million. But if they had lost or not got the settlement StL would not have been out of pocket at all.

[scrabbler1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winemaker DW and I have found anywhere from 20 cents to 20 dollars in change left in rental units on the floor for the past 22 years. No, we never reported it as income.

This reminds me of several finds back in 2008 I made. In about a 6-month stretch prior to my ER, I found (a) several dollar bills (around 7 of them) laying on the sidewalk near my apartment building, not a heavily traveled location; (b) on an empty PATH train car on my way to work I found a pile of bills including a $10 bill along with a NYC MetroCard which still had a few dollars in usable fares left on it; and (c) a bookmark inside a book my dad was reading was an unused LIRR single-trip ticket worth about $7 I was able to use for a future trip to work. Together these finds were worth about $30.

[Drake3287]

That's almost as bad as the State of California spending .58 cents in postage to send me a check for .05 cents! I also didn't cash it just to throw off the state budget.