I got a check in the mail today from Facebook.
Or, rather, from whoever it is that handles their finances when they lose class-action lawsuits, which I suspect is going to be a pattern for as long as this country allows legal action to proceed against the rich and powerful. Not sure how much longer that will be, but it’s fun while it lasts.
I didn’t even remember joining this lawsuit until the check arrived. Years ago I got some kind of email notification sent to the address I’d provided when I first signed up for Facebook. It was before the pandemic and for all I know it was over a decade down into the deep well of the past. I joined Facebook in 2008, so there’s a wide range of dates on which I could have received this email. “This you?” it said. “Fill out this form and preserve your rights and maybe get some cash for the nefarious things that this megazoid company has done to you!”
Sure, I thought. Why not.
And today I am $40 richer.
I’d like to say that I’ll try not so spend it all in one place except that with the current inflationary spiral caused by the chaotic and dimwitted economic policies of the last few weeks it is getting harder and harder to do that. Kim, Oliver, and I went out to dinner last night at the local hibachi place – the sort of restaurant where you order at the counter and they bring it to your booth – and while this $40 would have covered that a year ago it most certainly does not now. It is a good thing that our tastes don’t run to the sorts of restaurants where they have separate menus for beverages.
So I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with this windfall. Probably blow it on groceries or gas, being the wastrel that I am.
But it’s nice to have, and nice to know that every now and then the rich and powerful still have to answer to the justice system. I can think of a long line of further examples of that I’d like to see, all of which need to pony up a lot more than $40 to make me feel that justice is served, but you have to start somewhere and this is as good a place as any.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
One of the reasons my wife and I have been able to maintain our marriage this long is that she makes potato salad in precisely the same way, with exactly the same ingredients, in entirely the same proportions as my mother did. I didn’t have to teach her that, nor did my mother. We are working on a batch for our traditional easter feast tomorrow. (This year, we’re going to be trying a new Coca-Cola-based glaze on our ham. Simple recipe: 1 cup of brown sugar dissolved into a thick glaze using MexiCoke [bottled in Mexico and made with cane sugar, not corn syrup.] Could be interesting … )
At this point, you are probably wondering how this is remotely relevant to the above post. Allow me to explain:
Over the years, we have developed our own little Cost of Living index based on the cost of the ingredients for our potato salad. This is the second year on our newly acquired fixed income, and it’s kinda spooky to take note of the fact that the cost of the ingredients [potatoes, eggs, scallions, mustard, mayo, and Miracle Whip] rose since September 2024 by very close to 23%. [22.85185% - close enough to call it 23%, OCD can be a cruel task master.)
This is not sustainable.
Also, we coulda really used an unexpected windfall of $40 - woulda covered the cost of the spiral-cut ham. 😳😁🥰
Lucy
I found myself in a similar position last week, getting a PayPal alert telling me I had received my Facebook settlement, a thing I'd forgotten about signing up for. Spent some time trying to figure out if or how it was a scam before deciding if PayPal thought I was entitled to forty bucks, I might as well transfer it to a savings account and shrug.
I have to admit I was surprised it was $40 (that was the most suspicious thing about the notification, honestly); seems like usually you sign up for one of these class action thingums and eventually somebody sends you $2.87 for the trouble of having all of your personal identifying information put into the hands of Salamancan hackers or as compensation for all of the times some service charged you a 250% service fee for theatre tickets. $40 wouldn't buy all that many eggs these days, but it's almost in the ballpark of real money; it would at least cover a lunch someplace, maybe even lunch for two.
Oh, I'm not complaining. As the punchline to the old joke (almost) says, "Hey, forty bucks is forty bucks!" And all I had to do was fill in a form that gave them information they already had, so no loss there. But odd.
@Lucy - I'm the guy who does most of the grocery shopping in our family, in large part because I enjoy it and not many people do, and those numbers sound about right to me. It is not, in fact, sustainable. I suspect that's how Convicted Felon Donald J. Trump got as many votes as he did - "Prices are rising! Let's vote for the Fascist who says he'll make them go down!" - and now they're going up and said Fascist is on record saying he doesn't care. All those surprised? Yeah, thought so. Trade war's gonna make everything just that much more ... special.
The potato salad sounds good, actually. I like the kind that has mustard in it like that.
@Eric - Yeah, if someone is offering me 40 bucks for being on Facebook (which I've known for years is not healthy anyway), I'll take it. It did seem a respectable amount. It will definitely cover lunch for two in most places here in Our Little Town (and in all of the ones I'm likely to go to).
I don't have a PayPal, though Kim does and I use hers on those occasions when I need to do so. I like the fact that they had to mail me a check and this cost them an extra half buck or so.
Post a Comment