CLASS REACTIONS

Hacking Netflix is reporting that class members will receive a free month’s upgrade as a result of the settlement of Netflix v. Chavez starting with the next billing cycle.  The class consists of Netflix customers who had a subscription between January 15 and October 19, 2005.  Plaintiff’s lawyers will get $1.3 million for fees and expenses.  More info on the settlement is available here.

If you’ve found yourself scratching your head over an entry on your credit card statement, odds are you’ve fallen (or been pushed) into a trap set by Trilegiant.  Trilegiant is a company that dupes people in to recurring charges on credit or debit cards by offering largely worthless services.  They send out checks for around $10 to card holders with tiny print stating that, if cashed the card holder will pay $12 or so every month for some kind of “privacy protection” or other dubious service.  Read here for some true horror stories.  I’ll post a list of some of the offending fees at the end of this post.

A judge gave final approval to a class action settlement that gives $25 million to consumers who were charged for Trilegiant services they did not want.  Plaintiff’s attorneys will receive $8 million for fees and expenses.  There looks to be two ways to claim a share of the settlement.  Self-certifying class members do not need to submit documentation of Trilegiant charges, but their claims are limited to $20.  If class members have documentation, they may submit claims for the charges they can prove, with the potential for proration if many claims are filed.

As a part of the settlement, Trilegiant has agreed to take steps to protect consumers from future predation:

• When a consumer is enrolled in a Trilegiant Product, Trilegiant must send the initial Product materials by U.S. Mail or other reliable means within 4-5 weeks after the recorded date on which the consumer gives express consent to be charged for the Product either immediately or after expiration of a trial period.

• The Product materials will reasonably inform the consumer in clear and conspicuous language in the welcome letter accompanying the materials that the consumer has enrolled in the Product (which shall be identified by name), that a membership charge will automatically be charged to the consumer (and if it is subject to automatic renewal, that the membership will automatically renew unless the consumer cancels the membership), and will also provide an explanation of the cancellation procedures and a toll-free telephone number that the consumer can call to cancel the membership.

• Trilegiant shall maintain a record of each consumer’s express consent to enroll in or be charged for a Product for at least 24 months after the giving of such consent.

An interesting article in today’s New York Times discusses the phenomenon of cruise ship art auctions (free registration may be required for that link).  These auctions feature art neophytes (whose good sense may be dulled by alcohol, sun, or boredom) buying overpriced and possibly fake artwork for tens of thousands of dollars to kill time between ports. That these sales take place at sea may complicate things for potential class members…

It was only after Mr. Maldonado landed back in California that he did some research on his purchases. Including the buyer’s premium, he had paid $24,265 for a 1964 “Clown” print by Picasso. He found that Sotheby’s had sold the exact same print (also numbered 132 of 200) in London for about $6,150 in 2004.

In addition, he had paid $31,110 for a 1968 print, “Le Clown” by Picasso; Artprice.com, an online art database, showed it going for about $5,000.

Perhaps most disturbing, he learned from The Official Catalog of the Graphic Works of Salvador Dalí, by the Dalí archivist Albert Field, that the pencil signatures on Mr. Maldonado’s prints from Dalí’s “Divine Comedy” series (prints without a signature in the woodblock itself) put them in Mr. Field’s column of “unacceptable” prints.

The first look anyone gets at these pieces is on board the ship where checking on the information given by the salespeople/auctioneers is difficult due to costly and slow internet access.  Featuring in the drama are FineArtRegistry.com in the white hat and Park West Gallery wearing black.  There are also lawyers:

On the back of Park West invoices, issued on the ship, the appraised value is described as “the price a client would have to pay to replace the work through a reputable retail art gallery.” Yet on the Park West appraisals themselves, shipped to buyers along with their artwork, the appraised value refers to the “current Park West Gallery retail replacement price.”

A lawyer for the plaintiffs in both states, Shawn Khorrami in Los Angeles, said there was a big difference between the two. “It’s the difference between saying, ‘My house is worth $50 million because that’s what the market would pay for it,’ and, ‘My house is worth $50 million because I say so,” he said.

But a lawyer for Park West, Robert Burlington of Miami, emphasized that the courts have not yet certified the proposed classes in the suits and might not ever do so. He mentioned a 2001 complaint filed in New Jersey against Park West, accusing it of chandelier bidding (the art market term for plucking a bid from thin air), that was kicked around the courts for years before the class was denied certification, partly because the purchases at issue took place at sea.

According to plaintiffs, the Hoosier Lottery misrepresented the odds of winning and the amounts available to winners in its $10 “Cash Blast” scratch-off ticket game.  The lottery had to destroy 2.5 million tickets due to a printing error but did not modify the number of remaining prizes listed on its website.  This led some consumers to purchase many of the tickets under the belief that many of the high dollar prizes were still available in the relatively small number of tickets that remained.  The truth, however, was that most of those prizes were on tickets that had been destroyed and were thus never available to consumers.

On June 22, 2006 — more than a year after taking the flawed tickets off the market — the lottery noted on its Web site that seven of the initial 10 $250,000 prizes associated with the game remained available, the suit says.

By July 7, 2006, after realizing it had too many prizes listed on its Web site, the lottery announced that the number of $250,000 prizes remaining had dropped to one. The number of prizes of $50 or more fell from 65,570 to 5,197.

In early 2007 (and only after the lawsuit was filed) the Hoosier lottery began offering $10 coupons for any losing Cash Blast tickets.  This was more than half a year after realizing its mistake.  Apparently frequent lottery players hold on to losing tickets to offset any winnings come tax time but any less-devoted lotto players were out of luck until the judge certified this suit.

UPDATE:  A couple other blogs have taken up this issue, PopWallet and Class Action Blawg.

The end  of July will bring the filing deadlines for two class action settlements.

July 28 is the last day to file a claim for the Palm Treo settlement.  Those with two or more repairs made to their Treo 600 or 650 should check out the settlement website and read our past coverage of the settlement.

July 31 is the deadline in the HP/Compaq floppy drive settlement.  Our coverage is here.  Check out that settlement’s website here.

The Active Settlements page here on Class Reactions will keep you up to date on deadlines for all of the class action settlements we’ve covered.

I’ve previously written about the TransUnion settlement.  The bottom line is that if you’ve had a loan or a credit card since at any time since 1987 you’re almost certainly a member of the class and eligible to sign up for benefits.  You can get a couple levels of free credit monitoring services from TransUnion and/or you can sign up for a cash award.

The cash will come from a pool of $75 million that represents the money made by TransUnion when it (allegedly) illegally sold consumer information to third parties.  This money will first cover attorney’s fees and expenses and will also go toward settling any other lawsuits brought on this issue before being disbursed to class members.  Any cash awards have been capped at $100 and won’t be available for at least two years.

I signed up for the basic credit monitoring and a shot at some cash.  The possibility of some money years from now is more valuable than getting a (to me) worthless service today.  If you forgo the cash you can sign up for some advanced monitoring features.  It took me about three minutes to complete the claim form.

Links: TransUnion Settlement Website; Claim form

You may have noticed the new tab at the top of the page titled “Active Settlements.”  There you will find a listing of all of the active settlements covered so far at Class Reactions.  Check it out to make sure you haven’t missed an opportunity to make a claim.

About 6.3 million TD Ameritrade customers had their identities compromised by hackers who breached the trading service’s website.  In a proposed settlement the class members would be given access to a years worth of spam-blocking software and the class’s attorney were to be paid $1.8 million.  The judge in the case refused to approve the settlement as he was unable to see what benefit this settlement would provide to class members.  The judge also asked for an accounting of the work done by the attorneys to justify their $1.8 million payday.

An additional issue that court has to resolve is the lead plaintiff’s claim made in open court that he was coerced in to agreeing to the settlement.  It seems the judge was not alone in thinking that some anti-spam software was megre compensation.  The court will reconvien on this case June 26.

More info from Wired.

The settlement website is now online for the class action filed against Menu Foods and a number of other companies that sold contaminated pet food last year. As you will recall, the wheat gluten in many different brands of pet foods was imported from a single supplier in China (if you don’t recall, here’s the wikipedia article). The gluten caused kidney failure and death in a large number of cats and dogs and required veterinary screening in many others.

The companies that made the affected pet foods have established a $24,000,000 settlement fund. Pet owners are eligible for up to $900 per affected pet. You can find the list of affected brands here. You can’t file a claim online, but you can download the claim forms.

If you were a Time Warner Cable subscriber between January 1, 1994 and December 31, 1998 your information may have been sold to a third party without your consent. As the result of a recent proposed class action settlement you may be entitled to a free month of a cable service or five dollars. This settlement will not pay your whole cable bill for one month, rather it will entitle you to “One free month of any Time Warner Cable service that is available on a monthly basis and that you don’t already have” or two videos on demand.

If you live in an area without Time Warner Cable or just don’t want the free month, you can give your month to someone else. Either way you can forgo what amounts to a free preview and take five dollars instead.

From here it looks like the only real pain being inflicted on Time Warner is having to pay attorney’s fees and expenses (which amount to $5 million). How many class members are going to continue subscribing to the free service the select? Any other business might call this a marketing promotion, not a penalty for misconduct.

Two class representatives (lead plaintiffs) will be paid $2,500 each.

The deadline to file a claim is March 10, 2009.  Unfortunately there is no way to file a claim online. You have to download, print, and mail the form.  The deadline to state an objection to the terms is October 24, 2008.  Everything else you need to know is on the Time Warner Settlement Website.