You’re getting ripped off. Every year the products you regularly
use steal money they rightfully owe to you. In the first of a two-part series I’m
going to explain how I get the money I’m owed and use it to help pay for
Christmas gift giving. Then, I’m going to show you how make sure you’re getting
what you’re owed too.
All About that Action, with a Touch of Class
There are millions of products available to consumers for purchase
in the United States. Every year some number of the manufacturers of those
products break the law and face penalties that lead to damages they must pay to
their customers. Those damages are doled out in the form of “class action
lawsuits” in which the manufacturer agrees to pay a large amount of money
spread out to thousands of their customers harmed by whatever illegal thing it
was that they did.
Take Volkswagen for example. In 2015 it was revealed they
had, for years, been cheating emissions tests intentionally to make it look
like their cars were more fuel efficient than they actually were. Computer
programmers designed the cars to recognize when the vehicle’s emissions were
being tested and to fudge the numbers leading to a massive class action lawsuit against them. Affected owners received
$1,000 plus $2,000 in bonus value for
trading in their defective vehicles.
When the companies you buy goods from break the law, their
punishment involves reimbursing us, the affected consumers. The types of
companies that have paid their consumers settlements this year is astounding
and runs the gamut. Here are just a few products you could have been paid for
in 2016 if you had purchased them during certain time periods:
- · Potatoes
- · Milk
- · Red Bull
- · Batteries
- · Chocolate
- · Stevia
- · LCD screens in your laptop, mobile device, or TV
- · Pretzels
- · For using Facebook
- · And many, many more
There isn’t a consumer in America who isn’t buying at least one of the items on that list!
Gettin’ Paid
So how do you get paid the money you’re owed? Do you have to
go to court or hire a lawyer? Where do you find out what products might owe you
money? The answer: it’s actually very simple, free, and you don’t need a lawyer
or to make a court appearance. The
secret? ClassActionRebates.com!
Every month ClassActionRebates.com
updates their site with the latest lawsuits American consumers are eligible
for. You simply follow the links, fill out a form (you usually don’t even need
a receipt!) and 6-8 weeks later a check shows up in your mail box. If you’re
too lazy to check a website every month (guilty!) simply sign up for the email
list on their website. Each month they send me an email with a list of products
I may have used that owe me money. I scan the list, decide if I’m a member of
any of the affected classes, click the link, fill out the form, and sit back
waiting for my cash money. Here’s what they do in their own words:
Now I know some of my readers are well-to-do software
engineers and upper middle class white collar workers banking six figures a
year asking themselves, “Come on Bill, is this really worth my time?” Here’s a
look at my class action haul for 2016, the lowest I’ve earned since I started
tracking a few years ago (and I’m still waiting on about $200 from the LCD
lawsuit):
- · $6.26 from Red Bull (in two checks: the first was what I was owed, the second was split amongst everyone who received the first payment with what was left after all claims were filed)
- · $7.50 from Ghirardelli Chocolates
- · $6.00 from Duracell
- · $44.08 from Kashi
- · $30.49 from the potato industry
- · $16.00 from Stevia in the Raw
- · $10 from Snyder’s Pretzels
- · $15 from Facebook
- · Grand total: $135.33
$135.33 does a pretty good job of paying for Christmas
gifts, which is what we set class action rebate funds aside to do. After
counting the funds my wife also earned from the lawsuits she qualified for, we’re
sitting on about $300 in extra cash we can use to make sure Christmas is full
and happy. All this in a year where our total in class action rebates were the lowest we’ve ever received! Last year
Toyota alone paid me over $200.
So how much time did I spend earning this money? All told I’d
estimate I spend a minute each month reviewing the email I get from ClassActionRebates.com, then up
to 2 minutes filling out each form. That’s 16 minutes in forms and 12 minutes
in emails, but we’ll round up and call it a full half hour. $135 for 30 minutes
of work is an hourly rate of $270. If you earned that wage as your regular wage
you’d make nearly $11,000 per week, or a half million dollars a year! Even the
most handsomely financed software engineers aren’t typically pulling in a half
million dollars each year. So yeah, it almost certainly is worth your time.
Plus, having an extra “allowance” for our Christmas gift giving means it’s a
lot easier for us to hit our budget every year.
Even if you do
make more than a half million in income each year, it’s your right to get the money you owe from
these companies. They broke the law, harmed you with their products, and are
morally culpable to make it right on your behalf. Don’t let them get away with
it! GET YOUR MONEY.
Perjury and You
It’s exciting to get the money owed to you from class action
rebates. But remember: when you file your claim, you’re certifying under
penalty of law that you truly purchased the products you’re claiming. If you
lie about that you’re committing a crime: perjury, or lying to the courts. So
as exciting as it is to get the money you’re owed, make sure you only file in
the suits that you’re actually qualified to receive lest you face legal
consequences. There are so many bad actors each year, you don’t need to lie to
make sure you get paid what you’re owed.
Next week I’ll go over the second part of this series
detailing how we’re paying for our Christmas gifts this year with a brand new
tool I found out about earlier in 2016. Don’t want to miss it? Make sure to
sign up for our email list below to read that update and every new blog here at
The Bill Stark Blog!
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