Have you ever joined a class action suit?

I wouldn’t bother, unless it’s really important to you. They imply that you would get some money out of the deal but in general you would be lucky to get a dime in recompense.

I believe some 20 years ago I was part of a class action thing against A T&T For some fraudulent billing practices. If I recall, a year or so after signing up I received a check for a whopping three dollars and change.

Yes, a few times, but I never received more than a few dollars settlement.

Yes, just to see what happened. I got about 10 bucks.

I guess the lawyers’ amount maybe gets bigger and bigger if more people are in the suit? Or, maybe it just improves their chance of winning?

Yes. The Monsanto company was in the town I grew up in. It was determined they had contaminated our drinking water. I joined the class action lawsuit. I was awarded a free blood test, once a year, to determine if I have any side affects from being poisoned.

Yes, when a building I lived in burned in a fire, and the person that accidentally started the fire had insurance (taken out by her family, because she was kind of slow and they were prepared for her to do something stupid). We had a suit and I don’t even remember at this point if it was against the insurance company or what. I think it was. This was 20 years ago. The policy was for half a million dollars. Many families that lived in the building signed up for the suit. We had to wait a while for it to be litigated but we got a payout after a few years.

I have never jumped on any bandwagon against drug companies or medical manufacturers, for negligence or anything like that. I’ve never had any medical problems that were due to negligence or some medical apparatus that failed (like mesh surgery or anything). I’m not the type to lie and jump into a suit just for the money. Knock on wood, of the surgeries and medical procedures I’ve had, all have gone well with no side effects or bad recoveries. Maybe it’s due to living in an area of the country where the doctors are usually the best. I don’t know.

I have, several times. Usually I got $10.00 or so as a result. Once – don’t remember why – I got an ‘award’ of $57 or so. It doesn’t cost anything, so what then heck, why not?

@elbanditoroso Previously, I didn’t for two reasons: one, because if I hadn’t been harmed I didn’t think it was right to do it, and two, I was able to say I had never been part of a lawsuit when asked. Now, I have been part of a lawsuit, so I don’t care about the latter reason anymore.

Good point by @JLeslie. When you are involved in any type of lawsuit, your name goes into some database used by attorneys and litigators. When and if you ever sue anybody, they run your name and they will know about previous suits. If you sue people frequently, it looks suspect.

I have never replied to one of those mailings in order to join a class action lawsuit; however, I have received checks for my portion of a class action suit. The most current one was a check I received last year for $26.76 from the FTC saying it was part of my portion of a class action suit against a company of which I didn’t recognize. I assumed that it was one of those scams just to get my banking info , but decided to research further before dumping it in the trash. It turned out to be a legit claim & when I went to the bank they suggested that I just deposit it into my account as that would cause less info to be supplied while clearing.

Saturday I received another FTC check for $26.76 saying that since I cashed the first check, that this was the 2nd payout for the same ca suit. Curiosity got me & I went back to the FTC site to investigate closer as I consider over $50 to be a decent amount & wondered what I had bought that warranted $50 back. Turns out it was a BOGO scam from about 20 years ago I remembered making the purchase & I remembered being overcharged; however, they did give me a BOGO deal but they also added in 6 extra items at full price In the end I was overcharged by approx $200. I tried arguing with them but that went nowhere except a lot of hangups on their end & then all my calls went unanswered. Now I’m seeing the $50 as better than nothing & learned that they’ve had to refund over $7.2 billion dollars to all those they abused.. I’m sure the lawyers made significantly more than any of us receiving checks did; but, the $50 made me feel a tiny bit happier!!!