Author James Frey got more than just a tongue lashing from Oprah after his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, was exposed as a fraud. Disgruntled book buyers also filed a class action against Frey and his publisher asking for a refund. The case settled and Frey and Random House agreed to pay up to $2.35 million to people who got duped into buying the book.
Frey and his publisher, though, must be breathing sighs of relief. The Smoking Gun reports than despite newspaper ads urging people to claim their refunds, only about 1300 of the 4 million people who bought the book actually did, meaning that damage to Frey and Random House will be far smaller than expected. (And in case you were thinking about filing a claim now, it’s too late. The deadline was Monday.) Clearly the lawyers haven’t noticed that no one reads newspapers anymore. Now if they’d put the ads on say, Craigslist…
