Apple now paying out $95M in AppleCare lawsuit settlement
Apple is starting to send out payments in its $95 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit over refurbished devices used as replacements for AppleCare repairs.
AppleCare
Hagans Berman, the law firm handling the case, began sending out emails to members of the class on Thursday. According to an email seen by AppleInsider, a payment notification email will be sent by Aug. 30 that will allow class members to claim their payments electronically.
Those who are eligible to receive a payment in the settlement will have until Nov. 28, 2022 to claim their payment.
Payments will be sent out to any customer that purchased AppleCare or AppleCare+ coverage for an iPhone or iPad after July 20, 2012 and who received a refurbished device as a replacement.
The original lawsuit, which was first filed in 2016, alleged that Apple was misleading customers about its AppleCare terms. More specifically, it said that refurbished devices were not "new or equivalent to new in performance and reliability" as the term outlines.
Although the iPhone maker argued that refurbished devices were still "equivalent to new," Apple's efforts to have the lawsuit tossed largely failed. In September 2019, a U.S. District Court judge certified the class.
Apple has admitted no wrongdoing on its part. It still agreed to pay out $95 million to settle the lawsuit back in October 2021.
Hagens Berman is getting about half of the settlement. Users shouldn't expect big cash from this settlement -- the email that we received shows a $14.45 payout.
More information about the settlement can be found here. A full text of the email sent to AppleInsider is available below.
AppleCare
Hagans Berman, the law firm handling the case, began sending out emails to members of the class on Thursday. According to an email seen by AppleInsider, a payment notification email will be sent by Aug. 30 that will allow class members to claim their payments electronically.
Those who are eligible to receive a payment in the settlement will have until Nov. 28, 2022 to claim their payment.
Payments will be sent out to any customer that purchased AppleCare or AppleCare+ coverage for an iPhone or iPad after July 20, 2012 and who received a refurbished device as a replacement.
The original lawsuit, which was first filed in 2016, alleged that Apple was misleading customers about its AppleCare terms. More specifically, it said that refurbished devices were not "new or equivalent to new in performance and reliability" as the term outlines.
Although the iPhone maker argued that refurbished devices were still "equivalent to new," Apple's efforts to have the lawsuit tossed largely failed. In September 2019, a U.S. District Court judge certified the class.
Apple has admitted no wrongdoing on its part. It still agreed to pay out $95 million to settle the lawsuit back in October 2021.
Hagens Berman is getting about half of the settlement. Users shouldn't expect big cash from this settlement -- the email that we received shows a $14.45 payout.
More information about the settlement can be found here. A full text of the email sent to AppleInsider is available below.
Read on AppleInsiderAccording to our records, you are eligible to receive a payment of $14.45 in the settlement for the matter entitled Maldonado, et al. v. Apple Inc., et al., Case No. 3:16-CV-04067-WHO.
As Settlement Administrator for the matter, we're sending you this courtesy email to inform you that by August 30, 2022, you will receive a payment notification email that contains a link to claim your payment electronically. Once you receive that email, you will have until November 28, 2022 to claim your payment.
Comments
At a time when we should be cutting down with the disposal of e-waste this is bad news.
Wow. What a world we live in.
Yikes - so everything I've seen and experienced from class action lawsuits indicate that where possible it's not a good idea to join them where given the choice.
Yes, by all means, you should get your own lawyer and sue outside of a class action. See how that works out for you. Every time there's a class action judgement announced, there's the same whining of "only the lawyers win. Well, maybe you should have got to law school.
it is disappointing that lawyers get so much of the pot at the end of the game. But if the job was easy, you'd be doing it. Or maybe at least one of you. Who's going to file their own lawsuit and what do you think their odds are going to be?
The big payday for law firms, and not individual lawyers for the most part, is probably a big reason to take on class actions in the first place, but not in every case. Apple's responsibilities and actions going forward aren't clear to me. I tried reading the significantly redacted certification and gave up. I'm no lawyer. Maybe Apple has to provide new replacements for defective merchandise. If that's the case, customers win. And their replacement kit will be cover by AppleCare.
Will Apple rewrite AppleCare somewhat, and will that work for future claims. I have no idea. A few of my Apple buys have been refurbs but only when they've been significantly cheaper than retail. For the last few years there have been so many great deals from authorized retailers it hasn't made sense to buy refurbs.
Limit the percentage of lawyers' fees and plaintiffs get more money. That would almost guarantee fewer lawsuits with much less legal redress. If somebody's got a viable alternative that both better awards plaintiffs and stops egregious corporate practices, regale us with The Answer.
So who are you and who were you working for when you would tell customers what you were telling them, and who did the refurbishment?
This was a slam dunk case for liability of the driver and we were approached by lawyers wanting to make easy money. Their percentage (if they won) was in a range of 30% to 50%.
The young driver had the minimum state insurance coverage. The insurance carrier could not wait to pay the policy limits to preclude a trial where the family's home and all their assets were at risk. We chatted and received the max limits with no lawyer.
We are seniors so Medicare and the co-pay insurance covered the medical bills. But Medicare has to be reimbursed for their expense in an accident.
We have very high limits on our under-insured/uninsured car policy. We also have vey high medical payments coverage. My carrier of 30 years stepped up and covered all the medical bills. They also made a substantial pain and suffering payment to both of us all without a lawyer.
Money does not give you back the life you had before the accident. But keeping it all for us and not paying a lawyer 30% for making a few phone calls was a blessing.
These Class action suits under discussion are always brought by lawyers and the victims get pennies while the lawyers get the dollars.
it’s the cost of doing business.
I look to refurbished options even when upgrading due to the lower footprint, high quality and positive experiences I have had...
As a bonus the lower cost usually covers Applecare+, which has offered support and repair coverage for 3+ years,
and has seemingly become more important with onboard storage...
Both of my new Studio Displays came in a super fancy box inside a plain cardboard brown shipping box. Twice the material for the landfill. If the folks had spent as much time designing the box on the on board computer system, perhaps fewer issues requiring software updates would have occurred.
My Mac Studio was dropped shipped to the local Apple store from China. It was perhaps in a larger box with other Mac Studios or in it's own brown box like the displays., I do not know.
Touching my wood desktop, no problems so far with the Mac Studio. The fancy box was another "engineering marvel".