Blast from the past...
Dec. 4th, 2025 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickIn the different country that is the past, I used to own/operate a tiny little ISP in my tiny little town. It accepted credit cards, subject to the excessively high merchant account fees that were the order of the day. Now, I sold the ISP in 2007 and it doesn't have an EIN any more since we sold that to someone else. It hasn't filed a tax return in years. The business is closed.
But there's been a class action suit about the interchange fees related to accepting credit cards. I don't understand shit about it, but the business DID accept credit cards during the timeframe covered by the lawsuit.
Now, I don't like class action lawsuits. I think they push us towards a more litigious society. But if I am contacted as a possible beneficiary of the class action suit, I will 100% fill out the bullshit paperwork and provide the documentation needed and jump through the annoying hoops provided on the off chance that I'll get a few bucks out of whatever settlement is reached. I do this for absolutely every settlement offered to me because the amount of money you get for the class action lawsuit depends on two things... (1) How damaged you were by the wrongful action and (2) How many other people file the stupid class action claim paperwork. I mean, if other people don't bother to fill that shit out, maybe I could get the entire 5.5 billion dollar settlement myself. (This is not likely but it is also cheaper than playing the lottery.)
Class action settlements do not usually pay any one individual very much money. As an example, I got about thirty bucks out of the facebook privacy class action lawsuit. That was a lot for a class action suit, though. Usually I get under five dollars. Nobody but a lawyer makes bank on broad-spectrum class action lawsuits.
So, despite the fact that the company has since dissolved and despite the fact that it no longer has a tax return or a bank account or anything else, it DOES still (happily) have the same postal mailing address as before where it can still get mail. That's how the class action company got hold of ... the former president of the ISP, who was me. I also owned a third of the stock (family members owned the other two thirds). Like, I'm definitely one of the people who should be getting money from this company's portion of the class action suit settlement.
I filled out the paperwork earlier in the year and sent it off into the ether because, well, that's what we do 'round here. It was a pain in the ass, because of course it was, but I did the thing anyway.
I just got an email from the company handling the class action settlement and it appears as though our claim is going to come in right around $1300.00. Hunh.
I don't really believe this yet, but I told the settlement company to send me the money via paypal since that was an option. We'll see if that actually comes to pass. They don't have a timeline on payments yet, but okay. I'm not in a hurry.
But there's been a class action suit about the interchange fees related to accepting credit cards. I don't understand shit about it, but the business DID accept credit cards during the timeframe covered by the lawsuit.
Now, I don't like class action lawsuits. I think they push us towards a more litigious society. But if I am contacted as a possible beneficiary of the class action suit, I will 100% fill out the bullshit paperwork and provide the documentation needed and jump through the annoying hoops provided on the off chance that I'll get a few bucks out of whatever settlement is reached. I do this for absolutely every settlement offered to me because the amount of money you get for the class action lawsuit depends on two things... (1) How damaged you were by the wrongful action and (2) How many other people file the stupid class action claim paperwork. I mean, if other people don't bother to fill that shit out, maybe I could get the entire 5.5 billion dollar settlement myself. (This is not likely but it is also cheaper than playing the lottery.)
Class action settlements do not usually pay any one individual very much money. As an example, I got about thirty bucks out of the facebook privacy class action lawsuit. That was a lot for a class action suit, though. Usually I get under five dollars. Nobody but a lawyer makes bank on broad-spectrum class action lawsuits.
So, despite the fact that the company has since dissolved and despite the fact that it no longer has a tax return or a bank account or anything else, it DOES still (happily) have the same postal mailing address as before where it can still get mail. That's how the class action company got hold of ... the former president of the ISP, who was me. I also owned a third of the stock (family members owned the other two thirds). Like, I'm definitely one of the people who should be getting money from this company's portion of the class action suit settlement.
I filled out the paperwork earlier in the year and sent it off into the ether because, well, that's what we do 'round here. It was a pain in the ass, because of course it was, but I did the thing anyway.
I just got an email from the company handling the class action settlement and it appears as though our claim is going to come in right around $1300.00. Hunh.
I don't really believe this yet, but I told the settlement company to send me the money via paypal since that was an option. We'll see if that actually comes to pass. They don't have a timeline on payments yet, but okay. I'm not in a hurry.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-06 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-06 01:32 am (UTC)We have my grandparent's tax returns on file for the 1950's onward. Grandma died in 2011. We have hard copy corporate tax returns going back to 1973 with a bunch of the supporting documents to go along with them for each year, all on paper. We still print out hard copy tax returns and supporting documents (spreadsheets) every single year, on paper, and file them.
Ooh, why don't you file electronically? No. We do not like filing electronically and will not do so until we are absolutely balls-to-the-wall forced to do so.
Ooh, why don't you store your things in the cloud? No. Cloud is not reliable.
I was there for 5 1/4 floppy disks and punching holes in them with a hole punch so you could save on the backside. Those disks are no longer in use. Data "saved" that way is lost to me now.
I was there for 3 1/2 floppy disks. I do not own a computer with a 3.5" floppy drive anymore. That data is lost to me even if I have the physical disks.
I was there for CD-ROM drives and burning CDs. I don't own a computer with a CD-ROM drive or a CD/DVD drive anymore. That data is lost to me.
You know what works the same in 2020 as it did in 1960? Paper. PAPER FUCKING WORKS. If I have a paper folder that says 1978 Corporate Taxes, inside it will be sheets of paper that I can read and photocopy and use to document what things were going on, corporately, in 1978. I can still read them with my Eyeball Technology and Literacy 1.0 skill and that information will not be lost to me or to those who come after me because it is not on dead media or lost technology. If you store your paper stuff in the dark (like inside a closed book or inside a light-free filing cabinet), it will live for a hundred years.
My early childhood was photographed on Polaroid Instamatic cameras. Ask me how the color has held up on those? LOL. LOLOL.
Yeah, we still have the pics, but the infant "posed child photograph" mom had done of me when I was four months old looks way better than the "eight years later" Polaroids. They're really sad now, cracked and faded and shitty-looking.
My later-childhood was recorded on VHS. It's gone now, even though my brother had it transferred to DVD. The DVDs didn't last very long either. It's just... gone.
As a child born in 1970, I have a healthy distrust of any storage media that is pitched as "the future, going forward". I've seen the death, in my own lifetime, of 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, CDs of music, 45 RPM records, 33 RPM records, polaroid cameras, VHS video tapes, film cameras, laserdisc video, 5.25" floppy disk, 3.5" floppy disk, CD-ROM and DVD-R for media storage, DVD video, operating systems from Apple II, IIe, Windows 3.11, Win 95, Win 98, WinNT, Win ME, Win XP, etc. (I stopped using windows personally at the end of XP)
My faith in anything pitched as "permanent" media storage is very, very tattered. And wow, I have a shocking amount of feelings about this. Sorry to unload on you, please do not take it personally.