Consumer Fraud Archive
Week Adjourned: 4.27.12 – Bumble Bee Tuna, Vita Coco, Citizens Bank
April 27th, 2012. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
Bumble Bee Got Stung This Week—with a consumer fraud class action. Yes, it’s true, I’m afraid. The worker bee of tinned seafood (I have never understood what a bumble bee is doing on a tin of tuna) is facing allegations that it repeatedly violated California and federal laws that require companies to use truthful, accurate information on their packaged food labels. (Shame, shame.)
At specific issue in the Bumble Bee lawsuit are the health claims made by Bumble Bee Foods pertaining to its tinned seafood products.
The alleged violations include failing to disclose that Omega-3 has no established Daily Value under FDA regulations, and a failure to properly disclose the high levels of fat, saturated fat and cholesterol in Bumble Bee food products on the packaging and labeling.
The Bumble Bee class action lawsuit states “To appeal to consumer preferences, Bumble Bee has repeatedly made unlawful nutrient claims on products containing disqualifying levels of fat, sodium and cholesterol. These nutrient content claims were unlawful because they failed to include disclosure statements required by law that are designed to inform consumers of the inherently unhealthy nature of those products. ”
The lawsuit states, by way of example, “Tuna Salad Original with Crackers Kit” has 18g of fat per labeled serving, but does not bear a statement that fat exceeding the specified level is present.
The Bumble Bee Foods lawsuit is a nationwide class seeking to represent consumers who purchased Bumble Bee products labeled “Rich in Natural Omega-3” or “Excellent Source Omega-3” within the last 4 years. The California-based law firm of Pratt & Associates is representing the plaintiffs in this class action.
Top Settlements
Something a Little Loco ‘Bout Vita Coco…While we’re on the subject of consumer fraud—a preliminary settlement has been reached in the consumer fraud class action lawsuit against All Market Inc. d/b/a Vita Coco. You must remember this—(a kiss is just a—no—wrong song sheet)—it’s the miracle vitamin water. After all, it does everything including taking the garbage out.
If you purchased Vita Coco Products between August 10, 2007 and the present you may be entitled to a payment from a class action settlement.
Under the terms of the settlement, Vita Coco agreed to set aside $1 million (the “Cash Settlement Fund”), which will provide for payments to Settlement Class Members who timely file claims of up to a maximum of $25.00 with Proof of Purchase (as defined in the Stipulation) and $6.00 without Proof of Purchase. Vita Coco has agreed to provide $1 million current retail value in product vouchers, which can be redeemed by Settlement Class Members who timely file claims in lieu of cash up to a maximum of $36.00 with Proof of Purchase or $8.00 without Proof of Purchase.
There are other conditions the company has agreed to as part of the Vita Coco settlement, which you can find here along with your options as a class member- e.g., do you want to remain in the settlement class, or would you like to be excluded…where do you obtain forms, those kinds of things.
This settlement is only preliminary. The Court will hold a hearing on August 22, 2012 to consider whether to grant final approval of the settlement and whether to grant Class Counsel’s (as defined in the Stipulation) request for attorneys’ fees, reimbursement of expenses and incentive awards for class representatives.
Good Citizens They Weren’t but…It’s Payback Time! Citizens Bank has agreed to pay $137.5 million (Cha Ching!) to settle a class action lawsuit which accused the bank of manipulating its customers’ debit card and ATM transactions in order to generate excess overdraft fee revenues for the bank.
The lawsuit is part of multidistrict litigation involving more than 30 different banks entitled In re Checking Account Overdraft Litigation, case number 09-cv-02036, is pending before U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King in Miami. Citizens Bank is part of Citizens Financial Group which, through RBS Citizens, N.A. and Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania, operates more than 1,500 retail banking branches throughout the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic and the Mid-West.
The Citizens Bank lawsuit claims that the bank employed software programs designed to extract the greatest possible number of overdraft fees from its customers. According to the lawsuit, Citizens Bank re-sequenced its customers’ debit card and ATM transactions by posting them in highest-to-lowest dollar amount, rather than in the actual order in which the transactions were initiated by the customers and authorized by the bank. According to the lawsuit, this internal bookkeeping practice resulted in Citizens’ customers being charged substantially more in overdraft fees than if their debit card and ATM transactions had been posted in the order in which they were authorized by the bank.
I wonder if that settlement amount includes interest?
And on that note—happy weekend. Where’s the gin got to…
Think You’re a Bill of Rights Hot Shot? Take the Constitution Quiz
April 22nd, 2012. By AbiK
Occupy Movement Alive & Well beside Ben & The Boss in Philly
April 19th, 2012. By AbiK
It’s hard to put into words the feeling you get as you walk through Independence Mall in the heart of Philadelphia and reflect upon the fact that you’re not only walking past Ben Franklin’s grave, but also across the very ground that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and so many others once trod. All in the name of independence. It’s beyond breathtaking—no matter how many times you make the trek.
Right now, however, that hallowed ground holds even more meaning—particularly as 2012 marks the 225th anniversary of the US Constitution and celebratory exhibits fill the National Constitution Center, which sits just opposite Independence Hall where both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were originally signed. Special exhibits in the Center currently include one with personal artifacts from The Boss, himself: “From Asbury Park to the Promised Land – The Life and Music of Bruce Springsteen”. Independence Mall, however, is also where Occupy Philly is stationed. Still. And the significance is surely not lost on anyone.
Most people probably think Occupy Philly, along with all the other Occupiers, simply rolled up their sleeping bags and headed for working toilets at home. Sure, there’d be the die-hards whipping out their MSR Reactor Stove Systems for yet another ramen noodle-based dinner, but the rest of them? Gone, right?
Well, yes—but no.
Turns out the Occupiers don’t like freezing their tails off. Valley Forge this is not, after all. And so after moving to remote locales and continuing to stoke the fires of discontent, they’re back.
As with the pre-winter Occupy movement, it’s hard to find the bullseye issue—sure, it’s about corporate greed, corporate involvement in politics, the mortgage crisis and foreclosures, predatory lending, racial inequality, the economy, unemployment, disproportionate tax burdens—collectively summed up by the symbolic moniker of the masses: the 99%.
But any one of those issues could stand on its own as a cause celebre. And that’s been the challenge for the Occupy movement from the get-go—which issue is so central, so quintessential, that it could serve as the key rallying cry? It’s more or less the philosophical version of “jack of all trades, master of none”. And yet, in its ambiguity, there is indeed clarity—that something is very wrong in this country right now.
On the day that I visited Independence Mall (and Hall), there were only a few Occupiers out on the lawn—that’s them in the picture above (see more pics on our Facebook page). Their main focus: Wells-Fargo, the bank that’s surely seen its name in print a few times on LawyersandSettlements.com. Their primary beef: Wells-Fargo outpaces any other Philadelphia bank when it comes to foreclosures—this, after getting bailed out by the government to the tune of $25 billion.
The group, PHARE (Philadelphians Allied for a Responsible Economy) —from #OccupyPhilly—has flyers circulating that invite you to “Join us in taking Wells Fargo to Trial”: June 13, 2012 at 9:00 a.m., Municipal Court, 1301 Filbert Street” in Philly. If you’re in town, you might want to stop by.
So Occupy Philly is indeed back—along with the peonies and clematis. And much like those perennials, the movement appears ready to keep coming back. But after all, when freedom is calling, don’t we all come back to it?
Online Dating: A Sex Offender’s Dream Meet and Greet, Till Now
April 3rd, 2012. By AbiK
- T-shirt available at AllPosters.com
Dating in the real world is hard—you know, you have to try to look half-decent and then there’s the conversation bit—trying to sound both interesting and intelligent with a dose of humor thrown in. Not easy. Particularly if the chemistry just ain’t there. Enter online dating. It’s just easier, right? Stick a profile out there—write it up when you’re at your wittiest, have some friends edit it, find some pics and photoshop them, and you’re good to go. Be the best date prospect you can be because it’s all, well, massaged—the way an ad campaign is.
But here’s the thing. If you can do it—in essence, perpetrate a bit of ‘online fraud’—guess who else can put their best self forward on online dating sites? Sex offenders. And you thought canceled or inactive subscribers was bad!
That’s hopefully about to change. Thanks to attorney Mark Webb and California state attorney general, Kamala Harris, three of the larger online dating sites have agreed to provide online safety tools for daters including: checking subscribers against the national sex offender registries; providing an abuse reporting system for site members; providing proactive education about safe online dating practices; and providing tips on how to safely meet someone offline–as, after all, that’s the goal of an online meetup.
According to a release from the attorney general’s office, “In 2011, 40 million Americans used an online dating service and spent more than $1 billion on online dating website memberships. Of couples married in the last three years, one in six met through an online dating service and one in five people have dated someone they met through an online dating site.”
Given those numbers, it’s no surprise that online dating sites are a natural lure for those seeking a mate. Apparently, that’s what the woman at the root of these changes thought when she became a rape victim while on a date that began as a Match.com meetup.
The victim, known only as Jane Doe from Los Angeles, was on the Match.com-arranged date when she was raped. She found out later that her date was a convicted serial sex offender. Amazingly, in her subsequent Match.com lawsuit (Jane Doe vs. Match.com, Los Angeles Superior Court Case #BC458927) she only sought for Match.com to screen out sex offenders and she waived her right to compensatory damages. She just wanted to spare others from what she’d been through.
Of note as well, her attorney, Mark Webb took on her case pro bono.
In addition to Match.com, the online dating sites who agreed to the above terms include eHarmony.com and Spark Networks (which operates online dating sites including JDate and ChristianMingle).
Week Adjourned: 3.30.12 (Barefoot Running, LG Electronics, Deutsche Bank)
March 30th, 2012. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
Barefoot running benefits nothing more than barefaced lies? Well, it remains to be seen, but certainly there’s doubt over its merits—though no doubts re: its ugliness—and allegations of injury resulting from the barefoot running shoe. (Is it really a shoe?) A consumer fraud class action lawsuit was filed this week against Vibram USA Inc and Vibram FiveFingers LLC, alleging the company used deceptive statements about the health benefits of barefoot running.
Filed on behalf of Florida resident Valerie Bezdek, the Barefoot Running Shoes lawsuit alleges that 1) health benefits claims Vibram FiveFingers has used to promote the shoes are deceptive; 2) that FiveFingers may increase injury risk as compared to running in conventional running shoes, and even when compared to running barefoot; 3) that there are no well-designed scientific studies that support FiveFingers claims.
“Given that Defendant’s advertising and marketing equates barefoot running with running in FiveFingers, Defendant’s uniform deceptive statements about barefoot running are also deceptive statements about Five Fingers,” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit also states that sales of the Vibram FiveFingers shoes have grown an average of 300 percent a year for the last five years and approached $70 million in 2011. That’s certainly not chump change.
LG TV lifespans less than expected. You know, you could make the argument that defective products help the market economy—something breaks—you go buy a new one—right? Well, not according to some disgruntled LG consumers. They filed a federal class action lawsuit against LG Electronics USA, alleging that the electronics manufacturer’s plasma and LCD Television sets are defective, impacting the lifespan of the televisions. And they are not prepared to go out and buy new sets. Can you blame them?
The LG Electronics class action lawsuit seeks to represent anyone else who purchased certain defective LG televisions in the state of Nevada. Class televisions include but are not limited to models 32LC2D, 37LC2D, 42LC2D, 42PC3D, 42PC3DV, 47LC7DF and 50PC3D.
The lawsuit alleges that the televisions are defective in that they contain internal components called printed wiring boards (also known as printed circuit boards) that prematurely fail during normal operation of the televisions (the “defect”). The defect, which was present upon delivery and which manifests itself over time, ultimately results in the failure of the televisions themselves well before the end of their expected useful life, and rendering the televisions unsuitable for their principal and intended purpose. I’m guessing that’s watching TV…
Top Settlements
Danke schön, Deutsche Bank (not). It’s the financial mess that never ends—though you have to admit, it’s given the document shredding industry cause for a few high-five’s… A preliminary settlement was announced this week in the lawsuit pending against Deutsche Bank—with the German financial house agreeing to pony up a paltry $32.5 million to settle claims that it lied about the quality of home loans underlying the securities it sold. (Well Hel-lo. And where in the settlements line-up is this one?)
The investors that sued include the Massachusetts Bricklayers and Masons Trust Funds. They have filed a motion for preliminary approval of the Deutsche Bank settlement in federal court in Central Islip, New York.
“The proposed settlement will provide a substantial monetary benefit to the settlement class,” court papers state.
According to the lawsuit, and as reported by Bloomberg.com, in 2006, the plaintiffs bought from Deutsche Bank so-called pass-through certificates that gave them the right to the payments on the underlying home loans. The offering documents contained misstatements about loan underwriting standards, property appraisals, loan-to-value ratios and credit ratings on the certificates, according to the complaint. At the same time Deutsche Bank was selling the securities, it was profiting from credit-default swaps by wagering that loans like those underlying the certificates would decline in value, the investors claim.
The lawsuit also states “More than 49 percent of the loans underlying one certificate series were delinquent or foreclosed on,” the investors said. The tranche the Massachusetts Bricklayers and Masons Trust Funds, the lead plaintiff, bought “has already realized cumulative principal losses.”
The investors also claim that had a sale been done in 2008 when the lawsuit was filed, they would have netted between 70 and 80 cents on the dollar. “The certificates are no longer marketable at prices anywhere near the price paid,” the lawsuit states. So I guess $32.5 million doesn’t look so bad now.
OK–That’s a wrap. Happy Friday everyone–Mickey Mouse says it’s Martini Time! (and may one of us hit #MegaMillions!)
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