A Class Action Lawsuit and Money Management International

I received in the mail today a notice from a law firm informing me about a class action law suit against Money Management International. I contracted with MMI in October 2005 to help get me out of $53,000 in credit card debt which they did in 39 months. My part of the agreement was that I paid MMI $40.00 per month to manage my account and disburse the funds to the credit card companies. My first payment was in October 2005 and I paid off my obligations in January 2009. In other words I paid them $40 per month for 39 months for a total outlay of $1,560.

Someone brought suit against MMI claiming that they violated the letter and the spirit of the Credit Repair Organizations Act by operating as a for-profit organization when the Act requires them to operate as a not-for-profit. Rather than fight it in court MMI agreed to an out of court settlement of $6.5 million. After attorney fees are taken out, $4.7 million remains to be divided up among those of us "harmed" by this action. There were 415,000 clients of MMI during the period covered by the law suit. According to the information in the letter I will be receiving a payment from this class action law suit some time in the spring of 2011.

Before booking a flight in first class to Tahiti, I pulled out the calculator to get an idea of what sort of settlement I will be receiving. The calculator told me (after running the numbers 3 times) that if everyone receives an equal proportion of the settlement I can expect a payment of $11.32. Yup, that's it. Eleven dollars and thirty two cents.

I'm certainly glad I didn't book that first class flight on Air Tahiti Nui before doing the calculations.