In In re the Home Depot Customer Data Security Breach Litig.,the Eleventh Circuit has held that when a defendant agrees to pay class-action fees in a class-action settlement, in an amount to be determined by the district judge, separate from the fund set up by the settlement to compensate class members, the attorney's fee may […]
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The Federal Trade Commission announced this morning that it has reached a settlement with Facebook over the FTC's charges that the company violated a 2012 FTC order by deceiving users about their ability to control the privacy of their personal information. Under the settlement, Facebook will pay a $5 billion penalty and submit to new […]
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in both chambers has reintroduced a bill to combat online hotel booking scams. The Stopping Online Booking Scams Act would make it illegal for scammers to fool customers into thinking they are paying for hotel services when they are not. The bill had more than 40 co-sponsors in the Senate […]
The National Association of Consumer Advocates has created this series of five videos on debt defense. The videos educate ordinary consumers on how to deal with debt collection. Click on the links or on the embedded videos below to watch all five videos. Consumers can get other debt-collection information from NACA here. 1. Dealing with […]
As you'll recall, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) significantly expanded Medicaid — the War on Poverty legislation that had, for decades, provided comprehensive medical insurance to (certain) poor people. Among other things, the ACA Medicaid expansion required state Medicaid programs to cover all adults with incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Before […]
"Equifax has agreed to pay as much as $700 million to settle a series of state and federal investigations into a massive 2017 data breach that left more than 147 million Americans’ Social Security numbers, credit-card details and other sensitive information exposed. The punishment includes payments to affected consumers, fines to peeved regulators and a […]
The Sixth Circuit held today in Keen v. Helson that because the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act's text gives a right to sue only to a "borrower," someone who signs the mortgage but does not sign the mortgage loan with the lender is not a "borrower" (and so can't sue under RESPA).
This Washington Post article by Faiz Siddiqui explains that "Tesla is racing to be first to the market with a self-driving car made for the masses, promising to send as soon as this year an over-the-air software update that will turn hundreds of thousands of its vehicles into robo-cars." Yet, "a dozen transportation officials and […]
In a lengthy article today, the Detroit Free Press reports: Ford Motor Co. knowingly launched two low-priced, fuel-efficient cars with defective transmissions and continued selling the troubled Focus and Fiesta despite thousands of complaints and an avalanche of repairs, a Free Press investigation found. The cars, many of which randomly lose power on freeways and have […]
On Tuesday, AT&T became the first major US wireless company to automatically block robocalls for its customers. The free service comes after a June ruling by the Federal Communications Commission that allows phone service providers to offer call-blocking on an opt-out basis. CNN has the story, here.