In December 2009, a class action lawsuit was brought against Comcast for its throttling of P2P connections by sending reset packets. You could join the class action suit if you were a Comcast customer in the middle of 2007.
Comcast has settled out of court to the tune of $16 million in one of several ongoing P2P throttling class action lawsuits. You may be eligible for up to $16 restitution if ‘you live in the United States or its Territories, have a current or former Comcast High-Speed Internet account, and either used or attempted to use Comcast service to use the Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack or Gnutella P2P protocols at any time from April 1, 2006 to December 31, 2008; and/or Lotus Notes to send emails any time from March 26, 2007 to October 3, 2007.
I heard of others receiving checks at the end of March, my friend received an account credit last month, and I just received my check yesterday.
The enclosed statement reads:
Dear Claimant:
You previously filed a valid claim to participate in and receive benefits under the class action settlement in Hart v. Comcast et al., No. 08-1992-LDD (E.D. Pa.). The attached represents the benefit you requested.
Please cash or deposit this check immediately. If you do not cash or deposit this check within ninety (90) days from the date of the check, the check will become null and void and your right to receive this Court-approved benefit will be lost.
We cannot give you tax advice. Please consult with an attorney or tax advisor to decide if you need to declare this benefit as income on your taxes.
Details of this settlement, including legal documents and answers to frequently asked questions, are available on the settlement website: www.p2pcongestionsettlement.com. You may also contact the Claims Administrator at the address above.
Thank you,
Claims Administrator
If you were part of the settlement, you may recall filling out this form back in February at www.p2pcongestionsettlement.com.
The website currently states that benefits should be received by April 21st, 2011 but my check wasn’t even written until April 26th. It’s actually been so long since the settlement, a previous address was used and the mail forwarding is just about to expire. Thankfully my $16 arrived just in time.
The AT&T DSL Class Action Lawsuit has not been settled from what I have seen but I also qualified for that one, though I don’t think I included myself in it. I just seem to have “good timing” to be these companies’ customer at the same time they do something lawsuit worthy though they admit to doing no wrong.