Should I Take My Share of a Class-Action Settlement I Think Could Be Bogus?

I admire your scruples about this relatively small amount of money. From one perspective, the company and the class-action lawyers are both economic actors; the company’s legal team will have made their best assessment of its potential losses, as the opposing lawyers will have made their best assessment of their potential gains, and they will have litigated or negotiated accordingly. Still, if you are right — and you ought to spend a little more time to satisfy yourself that you are — taking your share would mean going along with a scheme that wrongly exploits the class-action system. Your suspected bounty hunters wouldn’t really be contributing to either of the two desirable ends that can recommend such suits: compensating those who have been wronged and discouraging future offenses. Giving up your share wouldn’t change this, of course. But at least the affair wouldn’t be something you took part in or benefited from. Why not let your husband take you out to dinner and celebrate that?