What to do when you're in a class action

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Maybe you got a boring slip of paper in the mail. Maybe you got a spammy-looking email promising you money. Surprise! You're in a class action. If you've done any commerce in the last decade, there's a good chance that someone somewhere was suing on your behalf and you have real money coming your way... if you know what to do.

Class action settlements are on the rise. And, on today's show, we're helping decipher the class action from the perspective of the average class member. How do class actions work? Why are these notices sometimes undecipherable? And, what do you stand to gain (or lose) by responding?

This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Nick Fountain. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from NPR sponsor Morgan Stanley with their podcast
0:04.1	What Should I Do with my money? Smart people don't always feel smart about money.
0:08.2	Listen to what should I do with my money to hear real people getting real help from
0:12.2	experienced financial advisors.
0:14.8	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:21.1	The other day I get this email sent from quote no reply at s-f discount settlement.com.
0:28.0	The opening line is your unique voucher code may be applied for up to five dollars at
0:35.2	Shutterfly.com one of those sites that lets you put photos on mugs and lots of
0:40.0	other things and if I want more information, well, there is a link I can click on. Now look, at this point in my life,
0:49.5	NPR has made me take like a dozen cybersecurity trainings that have taught me to A, never connect to public
0:56.9	Wi-Fi networks, B, not plug an unknown USB drive into my computer, and never, never click on links from emails
1:06.9	that promise me money. So I do not click the link for more information and instead.
1:12.2	Yes, hello. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Okay. I call up Professor
1:16.4	of Law at Georgetown, Maria Glover. It's probably overstating it to say you are a czar of class action knowledge but I don't know that I'll
1:26.1	declare myself king just yet but definitely know a lot. Yes Maria knows a lot about class action lawsuits because that
1:36.2	sketchy email it claimed to be money from a class action settlement called
1:41.2	Rivoli v. Shutterfly. The email didn't say how I was involved or actually
1:46.4	what Shutterfly had allegedly done. That's why I called Maria though. And she tells me she's used to people being weirded out when they get
1:54.2	something like this in fact she remembers one of her law students coming up to her
1:57.9	after class her concern when she got it was that she was actually being sued.
2:03.6	And she brought the, yeah, she asked if she could bring the class
2:06.8	notification to me.
	...

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