Bank error in lawyers' favor. Lawyers collect $27,000. Lead plaintiff collect $1,000. Everybody else gets the ATM fee refunded, or some of it.

About 13 years ago I was the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against a major electronics company.

The company settled the case. I got $1,000. Other plaintiffs received a couple hundred dollars.

The lawyers went home with $80,000.

This woman's story sounds eerily familiar.

Lawyers should work for free! Companies should be able to cause relatively small harm to a customer base of thousands of people without consequence!

[Follow-Up] Go to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $90,000.

Kome: [Follow-Up] Go to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $90,000.

DRTFA?

kronicfeld:

I don't think anyone is making either of those assertions.

FTFA: Under federal law, an electronic message on the machine's screen has to disclose any fees. There also must be a sign on the ATM. If either is missing, a bank can be found in violation of the statute.

I will now check all ATMs for this to see if I, too, can hit the jackpot.

Fark THAT.

I won second prize in a beauty contest and collected $10!

TwistedIvory: kronicfeld:

I don't think anyone is making either of those assertions.

Quiet, you. You're harshing his lawyer buzz.

I keep my eye out for situations like this. I figure I've got a better chance of striking it rich by doing that than playing the lottery.

FTFA:"The law firm she hired to handle the case -- which has carved a niche for itself suing banks over ATM fee disclosures..."

that's a pretty neat niche

TwistedIvory: About 13 years ago I was the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against a major electronics company.

The company settled the case. I got $1,000. Other plaintiffs received a couple hundred dollars.

The lawyers went home with $80,000.

This woman's story sounds eerily familiar.

This is pretty much status quo with the class action lawsuits. Be glad you got anything.

TwistedIvory: About 13 years ago I was the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against a major electronics company.

The company settled the case. I got $1,000. Other plaintiffs received a couple hundred dollars.

The lawyers went home with $80,000.

This woman's story sounds eerily familiar.

Can you think of a better way to compensate a large amount of people who's loss was too small to warrant separate litigation for each person?

kronicfeld: Lawyers should work for free! Companies should be able to cause relatively small harm to a customer base of thousands of people without consequence!

Thank God there is at least one voice of reason here.

I agree that plaintiffs in many class action suits get screwed. But this woman is getting $1,000 because they didn't properly disclose a fee that was probably under $5. And the other plaintiffs will also likely be getting much more than the questionable fee.

This isn't exactly one of those "the plaintiff is getting screwed" stories.

PawisBetlog: kronicfeld: Lawyers should work for free! Companies should be able to cause relatively small harm to a customer base of thousands of people without consequence!

Thank God there is at least one voice of reason here.

i agree with 1/2 your statement... nobody should work for "free" unless you want to classify it as charity case. I don't agree with how much of a slice of the pie lawyers generally get but they do need to earn income. If you spend 40K a year for 7 years to become a top lawyer, you gotta recoup that investment of time/money somehow.

It's always a tradeoff - if you choose to go the class action route, you have much better strength in numbers for your case, but the damages are naturally going to be less, just gotta accept it. Also keeping in mind that a lawyer, or team of lawyers working a class action case have to a do a lot more footwork.

What we really need in this country is that if you bring suit against a person or entity and you LOSE, then you must pay all fees for each side. This would cut down on frivolous lawsuits that have our court system in gridlock, and bring to trial only the cases that have TRUE merit.

ZAZ: Bank error in lawyers' favor. Lawyers collect $27,000. Lead plaintiff collect $1,000. Everybody else gets the ATM fee refunded, or some of it.

How much would the plaintiff get without any representation? Probably 0. How much work did the woman do to win the case compared to the layers? Probably 0.

accelerus: What we really need in this country is that if you bring suit against a person or entity and you LOSE, then you must pay all fees for each side. This would cut down on frivolous lawsuits that have our court system in gridlock, and bring to trial only the cases that have TRUE merit.

Don't you think that would give people with the finances even more power? If average people are scared to sue due to the financial loss of losing, then the entities with the money would be even more bold with their transgressions.

kronicfeld: Lawyers should work for free! Companies should be able to cause relatively small harm to a customer base of thousands of people without consequence!

They should work for flat rates that are not dependent on a percentage of the reward money. Of course that might extremely cut down the number of frivolous suits.

Then again, poor people couldn't afford to sue car manufacturers for rolling a car they drove drunk in. So there is that.

TwistedIvory: About 13 years ago I was the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against a major electronics company.

The company settled the case. I got $1,000. Other plaintiffs received a couple hundred dollars.

The lawyers went home with $80,000.

This woman's story sounds eerily familiar.

She's got 333% more than she lost. I'd imagine she's happy. I don't think this is one of those things where you should expect a windfall.

Out of curiosity what where the details in your case? What happened that caused you to bring a class action lawsuit against the company?

Amusingly horrendous typo near the bikini lady pic. I found it after about 10 minutes of staring

Fact is that legal recourse is the accepted form of recompense for basically any damage inflicted by any entity on any entity. Unfortunately, the reality is that damage happens all the time in our country at all different scales and levels. There is no good way to handle this, so we have this system. It's not great but it basically works most of the time. If anyone here can think of a more efficient and fair system that would allow for these types of decisions to be made then please...enlighten us.

I got a check for a class-action suit against Citibank for late fees. It was a multi-million dollar settlement. Guess what I got? Come on guess. I got a check of a whopping $0.34. I still have the check. Someday I will frame that check.

And then, the IRS shows up with their hand out. Both times I was part of some class action, I got a voucher for something less than $100. Both years, I also had to declare it as income and pay taxes on the 'windfall.' Hope this woman doesn't have to. Fark the IRS.

"Pay to the order of...Iron Balls McGinty...one dollar and NINE CENTS!"

/didn't even test the opti-grab on prisoners

In before the smarmy fark lawyer brigade starts to biatch about "billable hours"


I'm looking in your direction, Nabb1 et al.

I was in a class action lawsuit where a credit card company would deliberately process payments late and then charge people a $29.00 late fee. I got dinged once by this. When the settlement arrived, I got a whopping 25 cents credit on my account.

accelerus: What we really need in this country is that if you bring suit against a person or entity and you LOSE, then you must pay all fees for each side.

yea so nobody will sue any corporations for fear of financial ruination.

that is what you want isn't it?

Pay to the order of...Iron Balls McGinty...one dollar and NINE CENTS!"
didn't even test the opti-grab on prisoners


you win

brainrocks: Pay to the order of...Iron Balls McGinty...one dollar and NINE CENTS!"
didn't even test the opti-grab on prisoners

you win

You Amerika is funnee.
Mucho dollars, only lawyers.
Krazy.
Not in Europa.

eddyatwork: I was in a class action lawsuit where a credit card company would deliberately process payments late and then charge people a $29.00 late fee. I got dinged once by this. When the settlement arrived, I got a whopping 25 cents credit on my account.

You don't have to join a class action lawsuit. You can always sue individually.

Yeah, but has subby ever owned all four railroads? I think not.

$1000 for a $3 fee? Unless I am using an ATM from my financial institution I EXPECT a fee. Maybe the rule should state unless this ATM says FREE transactions expect to pay a fee for using it?

Or maybe the bank should go hey oops sorry about that here is your 3 bucks back and have it done with. Were they given that option?

Maybe the rule should state unless this ATM says FREE transactions expect to pay a fee for using it?

I still want to know what the fee is.

I got a check for $.02 from a credit card class action suit once.