You’re not alone: According to ... more and more claimants and bigger and bigger settlements. Ads marketing these lawsuits are popping up on social media and, while most people ignore them, there are Facebook groups, lawyers, and hunters like myself, all dedicated to chasing ...
You’re not alone: According to a recent defense attorney interest group report, there was $42 billion in class action settlements reached last year, “the third highest value we have tallied in the last two decades, trailing only the settlement numbers from 2023 ($51.4 billion) and 2022 ($66 billion).” Given the proliferation of corporate monopolies, legal cases brought against tech companies will naturally include more and more claimants and bigger and bigger settlements. Ads marketing these lawsuits are popping up on social media and, while most people ignore them, there are Facebook groups, lawyers, and hunters like myself, all dedicated to chasing down these payouts.These kinds of sites are what I recommend to people who ask, because since 2021, I’ve become “class action guy,” reminding family members to file claims, check their spam folders, and get that money. Technically, I was party to my first class action all the way back in 2016, with litigation related to the Aliso Canyon gas leak, which WIRED reported as the “worst climate disaster in US history” at the time.That process was mainly via email and on the phone, and the payout took seven years to show up—but in the meantime, I kept searching for “settlement” in my email. In 2021, that led me to Mansour v. Bumble Trading Inc., a settlement in California based on claims that Bumble was discriminating against male users by only letting women message first.“I check daily,” says Phelps, a Memphis-based health care worker who estimates she’s received almost $8,000 since 2023 by keeping up with the various postcards, emails, and online advertisements that work to bring eligible claimants into a class action. “Out of a seven-day week, no more than about two and a half hours—probably 30 minutes or so a day—just to scroll through and see if there's been any updates or any new settlements that impact me. I'll check my junk mail too, just to make sure.”
