When a company is hacked and its customer data stolen, one certain outcome will be class action lawsuits by customers against the corporate entity. The consumer class-action claim is often the best legal remedy available to get recompense for the vast numbers of individual victims of such crimes. The most recent notable corporate victim of a massive data breach has been health insurer Anthem. In the aftermath of the attack class actions have been filed in California and two other states to vindicate customer rights.
TracFone pays $40 million on deceptive business practices claim
It can get aggravating to a user who buys an "unlimited" data service for a mobile unit only to find that there are limitations and that the advertising pitch was deceptive. In the case of TracFone this led to class-action claims alleging deceptive business practices. The company has settled one of those claims for $40 million to be paid back to affected customers, including residents of California who purchased an unlimited plan after 2009.
Consumer class-action claim filed against Lime-A-Rita beer ads
Is it nit-picking or a reasonable consumer protection issue? Today, with obesity being a clear public health problem, the importance of calorie intake to the success of an individual weight loss program may be critical. It may not be surprising, therefore, that a consumer class-action claim has been filed in a federal district court in California against Anheuser-Busch for falsely advertising that one of its products is a low calorie beer.
Another consumer class-action claim against Applee
Another class action lawsuit was recently filed against Apple in a federal district court located in northern California. The consumer class-action claim asserts that Apple has used what amounts to deceptive advertising with respect to the amount of storage that it provides on its iPhones, iPads and iPods. The complaint alleges that the company fails to tell people that up to 23.1 percent of the advertised storage space is actually used for the operating system itself.
Court rules against Facebook in consumer class-action claim
Despite phenomenal success, big tech and social media giants like Facebook, Google and Apple seem to have a constant flow of litigation directed at them. One of the latest is a consumer class-action claim filed in a federal district court in California against Facebook. It claims that the massive social networking conglomerate must pay damages to customers whose privacy was exploited by the company for the purpose of gaining more advertising revenues.
Court nixes Target motion to dismiss consumer class-action claim
Roughly a year ago, the databases of major retailer Target were hacked, leaving millions of customers exposed to danger due to the theft of their credit and debit card information. Numerous class action lawsuits were filed against the company, including some in California. Recently, in a U.S. District Court, a judge has ruled that a consolidated consumer class-action claim against Target can go forward.
Comcast settles consumer class-action claim for $50 million
The anti-trust activities of cable television companies has been a concern to many consumers in California and nationwide who believe that they should have a choice about which company will provide their cable service. These days, that decision also increasingly includes using the same provider for Internet and landline telephone services due to multi-service packages offered. A consumer class-action claim may in some cases be a viable tool to stop or impede a monopolistic practice by a large cable provider.
Consumer class-action claim filed to stop false yogurt labeling
Is it consumer fraud in California to label a Greek yogurt product as having two grams of sugar when testing indicates it has 11.4 grams? If so, will the false labeling justify a consumer class-action claim to correct the problem and collect compensation for defrauded customers within the class? The answer awaits further litigation and an ultimate decision by a federal district court in another state.
Consumer class-action claim filed against cosmetics retailer
Sephora is a high-end makeup retailer owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc., which has stores in this country, including in California. The company got itself embroiled in controversy a few weeks ago while conducting a 20 percent off sale. The traffic to its website was so frenzied that it crashed. When it was restored, the company reportedly attempted to stop purported bulk buyers and resellers of its products by locking out all customers with email addresses that contained Chinese and Asian-sounding names. Unsurprisingly, the company is now a defendant in a consumer class-action claim that was filed by four Asian women in a federal district court.
Consumer class-action claim filed against mortgage servicer
The wheels of justice have been slowly catching up with some of the worst offenders who capitalized on the woes of struggling homeowners during the mortgage crisis and beyond. Some mortgage-servicing companies have been widely charged with unethical and deceptive practices engineered to compel defaults by consumers. One of the reported offenders, Ocwen Financial Corp., faced another consumer class-action claim by virtue of a complaint filed against it in a California federal court on November 5.
