Paypal Class Action Suit - Update from Paypal

Poststructural Pub
1

Did anyone else get a notice of a class action lawsuit from Paypal? There is a link you can click on to provide the “required” information. I can provide the full text if anyone is interested.

IF YOU OPENED A PAYPAL ACCOUNT BETWEEN OCTOBER 1999 AND JANUARY 2004, YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO A PAYMENT FROM A CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT.



3. WHAT IS THIS LAWSUIT ABOUT?
In early 2002, Plaintiffs Roberta Toher and Jeffrey Resnick filed separate lawsuits against PayPal, Inc. These two cases were later consolidated into one lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, entitled In re PayPal Litigation, Case No. CV 02 01227-JF (PVT). The lawsuit alleges that PayPal violated the federal Electronic Fund Transfer Act (“EFTA”), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1693 et seq., …

I have not contacted Paypal directly about this yet. I have never seen anything on their site regarding this.

2

Yup, I got an email on it too. There’s a link in the email to their site, which then directs you off site for more information.

I don’t think I’m eligible anyway, as I am one of the lucky ones never to have been burned in a transaction.

3



  1. HOW DO I KNOW IF I AM PART OF THE SETTLEMENT?
    On July 12, 2004, Judge Fogel entered an order granting preliminary approval of the settlement and certifying the following class for purposes of the settlement: All Persons who opened a PayPal account during the period from October 1, 1999 through January 31, 2004.



    (d) “Statutory Damage Fund Claimants” are all Fund Claimants who are not Dispute Resolution Claimants.

  2. Statutory Damage Fund Claimants
    The plan of allocation designates $1 million of the Net Settlement Fund to a “Statutory Damage Fund,” to be distributed equally among all Fund Claimants who are not Dispute Resolution Claimants. This means that if you are a member of the Class and do not fall within the definition of a “Dispute Resolution Claimant,” as set out above, you can make a claim for a payment from the Statutory Damage Fund.

So, basically, anyone that has opened an account before the end of January COULD receive a settlement, if this is not bogus. Still checking into it.

4

I haven’t gotten an e-mail, but a quick Google search turned up this site:

http://www.paypalwarning.com/ClassActionNews/

M

5

i got it too…deleted it already.

6

This could be a fraud, so be careful.

If it is a legit class action suit, you have an option to remove yourself from the ‘class’ doing the suing and preserve your own legal options.

Payouts from these types of suits are usually coupons against future spending. If the class action is successful, you’ll be notified of your winnings (usually part of the court settlement). So, no action is required at this time.

I still have coupons from an American Airlines settlement and the terms are so complex that I still have not figured out how to use them.

7

This site was last updated in 2002, so I’m not sure how accurate it can be these days.

However, if one presupposes that www.paypal.com accurately takes you to the paypal website, then www.paypal.com/settlement should accurately take you to the settlement page on their site. By typing it in by hand into your browsers address bar, you can be assured of not falling for any funny java tricks and the like.

That settlement page redirects you to another page, which asks for some information. I fall into the statutory claims category, and the information they asked me to fill out was name, address, and date I signed up for paypal. They didn’t ask for any money, nor did they ask for passwords or the like.

The site then made a custom pdf file of a claim form for me to mail in. Since I get there from going straight from paypal’s site, and they didn’t ask f or any account information, i’m treating it as legit.

BTW, according to the settlement site you have to fill out a form to declare what kind of claimant you are:
"If I Do Not Do Anything, What Happens?

If you do not submit a claim and you do not opt out, you will remain in the class, but you will not receive a settlement payment and you will release all of your rights relating to the legal claims in this case. "

Paypal is evidently putting aside $1mil for “statutory damages claimants”..folks who had an account, but never had any problems, but who are due some statutory damages. That’s supposed to be paid directly into your paypal account when all is said and done. Considering that at one time, paypal claimed more than 13 million account holders, if you file, you may get less than a dime in payment, so if you don’t file, you’re probably not losing anything :slight_smile:

Edit to report research:

The settlement website is registered to Girard Gibbs, one of the law teams who had class actions open. Paypal did indeed recently settle, according to CNET News:
http://marketwatch-cnet.com.com/PayPal+settles+customer+suit/2100-1038_3-5233490.html

Additionally, paypalsucks.com (a site devoted to keeping track of paypal abuses) has a story which links to the settlement site:
http://www.paypalsucks.com/forums/showthread.php?fid=3&tid=5223&old_block=0

The kinds of things on the settlement website look very similar to the settlement website of the recent microsoft class action settlment, so I still think it’s legit.

8

Is there somewhere in paypal that says when we joined?

9

I dunno…i’m an email packrat and happened to have my original ‘welcome’ message that had the date of when I joined. :slight_smile:

Paypal history searches only seems to go back a year..if you joined less than a year ago, you could search your entire history and use the earliest.

10

I did a research of all transactions I made on Paypal. When I signed up I got a $5 signup bonus. When I found that, I considered it my signup date.

Thanks for all the legwork, Wanderer.

I have sent an email to Paypal’s spoof address and am waiting for a reply back from them.

11

Here is the text of an email I received from Paypal this afternoon:

Dear Steven-NorCal,

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

Thank you for bringing the "Notice of Pendency of Class Action and
Proposed
Settlement¨ email to our attention. We can confirm that PayPal sent this
email. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

On June 11th, 2004 PayPal entered into a Settlement Agreement with Girard
Gibbs & De Bartolomeo LLP and Wolf Popper LLP for a lawsuit filed in 2002
on behalf of a class alleging that PayPal did not appropriately communicate
about customer transactions and did not appropriately process limits that
were placed on some customer accounts. In this agreement, PayPal does not
acknowledge that any of the allegations in the case are true and entered
into the Settlement Agreement to avoid further costs of litigation, and to
devote resources to more productive areas of our business

PayPal’s employees and subsidiaries can not provide information or legal
advice in relation to the class action lawsuit and proposed settlement. You
may seek additional information about the settlement from the attorneys for
the class. They can be reached via email or by first class mail at:

paypalsettlement@settlement4onlinepayments.com >

Girard Gibbs & De Bartolomeo LLP
601 California Street, Suite 1400
San Francisco, California 94108

Wolf Popper LLP
845 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022

Additionally, you can obtain more information at
http://www.settlement4onlinepayments.com> .

If you have any further questions regarding your account, please log in to
your PayPal account and click on Help (located on the upper right side) ³
Contact Us ³ Help by Email ³ Contact Customer Service.

Sincerely,

PayPal Account Review Department
PayPal

12

Just got my Paypal class action lawsuit notice…haven’t really had time to look it over…

13

It’s also mentioned here:

http://www.slickdeals.net/

(And incidentally, if there is a Cold Stone Creamery near you, stop by for your free slice of cake this evening…)