Are you Canadian? Did you buy consumer electronics in Canada between 1999 and 2002? If you can answer “yes” to both of those questions then you are entitled to a cash money payout as part of the now-settled class action lawsuit against the manufacturers of DRAM.
In a nutshell: The companies that manufacture RAM chips conspired to fix the price of DRAM at artificially high levels. Companies that use those chips to make things (and a lot of things use DRAM) necessarily passed those inflated prices on to you. And now you can get back a little bit of that coin by filling out a simple form – it takes about three minutes for the basic $20 claim – and clicking the send button.
In a bigger nutshell: Any Canadian can claim the basic $20 compensation just by filling out the form … no receipts or other supporting documentation is needed. The legal assumption here is that you almost certainly purchased at least one item that qualifies and it would be unfair to expect you to come up with a receipt at this point for a 15-year old MP3 player or videogame console or whatever. Alternatively, if you are one of the few people in the country who didn’t purchase a device that uses DRAM, your decision was probably influenced by the corrupted market pricing and you are still eligible for damages. Either way, you should take the time to at least fill out the basic claim. To paraphrase the immortal words of Geddy Lee, “Twenty bucks is twenty bucks, eh?”
It a really, really big nutshell, we are talking about a cocoanut here: If you have documentation – it doesn’t necessarily have to be receipts, there are other types of supporting documentation allowed – of multiple items that you bought between April 1, 1999 and June 30, 2002 you can apply for a larger claim. If you are Average Bobby Consumer then your claim is still going to be within spitting distance of twenty bucks, and it wont make much difference. But if you own a couple of stores, make or resell items that use DRAM, or have any other legit reason for buying a lot of gear then it is probably worth the time to sit down with the online calculator and see what you can get.
All of the details, including the FAQ, lists of affected items, the legal back ground, and (most importantly) the online claim form can be found here. It costs you nothing to file a claim but the process closes on June 23, 2015 so if you are going to partake, do it now. One quick tip: Each adult in a household should file individually and not as part of a group submission, otherwise you will end up shorting yourself.
As an aside, I personally think class action lawsuits are the worst kind of legal chicanery, nothing more than opportunistic and greedy lawyers looking to cash in on massive fees while the actual aggrieved parties do all the work of submitting the claims. That said, this one is already in the bag and no matter how odious you think it is you might as well get your piece of the pie. Just hold your nose and think of Geddy Lee.