ParkMobile Class Action Settlement

In 2021, the ParkMobile app had a massive data breach exposing the personal information of millions of users.

Did they provide compensation to their customers?  Nah.  Just an email informing you that your information was breached and that you could always change your password if you want.  Passwords were encrypted, so they did that right at least.

A class action suit was initiated and was eventually settled.  The settlement was a joke.

According to the court proceedings, ParkMobile was obligated to provide $25 cash payment to every settlement class member who elects to take it.  The email notice went out on March 3rd and it required members to fill out a claim by March 5th, just two days!

If you didn't fill out a claim, as I didn't because I didn't see the email in time, you still get compensation of  $0.25 credit on four future parking sessions.

WTF, lawyers at Gibson Consumer Law Group and Murray Law Firm, couldn't you get them to provide the parking credit all at once?  

This is one of the weakest class action settlements, or even of compensation for a substantial data breach,  I've ever heard of.

 

   

 

Like It Was Never There

My computer auto-updated last night, so now I guess I'm using Windows 11.

Of course it opened a tab in my browser telling me about the great new features I got in the update. One of them had the tag line "Like It Was Never There" and was an option to use AI in the Windows photo editor to remove unwanted items from photos. Great! I've been wanting this feature forever.

So I clicked the "Try Now" button. There were no instructions anywhere, but eventually I stumbled onto the item and sub-item I needed to select to activate the feature:

And that was the end of my "trying" the feature. The little box that popped up says "You need credits to use this feature. Unlock AI credits to use here, across Microsoft 365 apps, and more, by upgrading to a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family Subscription". What the hell are Credits? I guess "Try Now" actually means "try after you pay for a Microsoft 365 family subscription". Also I'm pretty sure I have a Microoft 365 subscription but I guess the photo editor doesn't seem to know about it.

"Like It Was Never There" seems like an apt description for this feature after all.

New Rule #37

 EVERY video and audio player shall have a 10 second rewind button.

Capital F-You Capital One

 Back in 2019, I ranted about Capital One's devious practices related to the Online 360 savings account.  I am happy to report that Capital One was sued in a class action lawsuit regarding this unsavory behavior and a settlement has been reached.  As always, the settlement is not big enough to dissuade companies from such practices, but it is better than nothing.  I feel vindicated.

 

Chipotle Rewards

Trying to deal with the Chipotle Rewards program recently had me pretty steamed.

I had enough points for two burritos, so I redeemed the points. Then when I went to place my order, I found out that (for no reason) you can only use one reward per order. I was annoyed but figured no problem, I'll just save the other one for my next order. But since I had now "redeemed" the reward, it had a very short expiration date. So I had to order Chipotle again a week later, which I'm sure is exactly what they wanted.

The whole reason we were ordering Chipotle in the first place was because there was a school fundraiser. I couldn't find the place where you enter the fundraiser code. After much research, I finally figured out that they don't let you use any rewards if you're doing a fundraiser (why?). So now I had to skip the fundraiser.

I also observed that if you use a reward for an item, and then you add a cheaper item to the order, it immediately "swaps" the reward so that it applies to the cheaper item. Now I had to change around my order to avoid getting taken advantage of.

Notice that for all three issues noted above, Chipotle forced me to change my behavior to deal with their rewards program. I think a good and honorable rewards program should give you a free item without having to be coerced into doing what you didn't want. I've never had this sort of problem with Chick Fil A, for example.