Posts Tagged ‘ Overdraft fees ’
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…
Week Adjourned: 2.10.12
February 10th, 2012. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
If you didn’t need Zantac before, you may need after reading this… Walgreens is facing a consumer fraud class action lawsuit over allegations the drugstore chain, in partnership with Par, a manufacturer of generic pharmaceuticals, marketed generic versions of antacid Zantac and antidepressant Prozac in dosage forms that weren’t subject to private and governmental reimbursement limitations. “As a result of this unlawful conduct, Plaintiff and other third-party payors paid two to four times more than they would have had the prescriptions been filled as written,” the lawsuit claims.
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) who filed the lawsuit, alleges in the Walgreens class action lawsuit that Walgreens and Par “engaged in at least two widespread schemes to overcharge insurance companies, self-insured employers and union health and welfare funds for the generic versions of Zantac, Prozac and other drugs.”
According to the lawsuit, “Walgreens purchased these dosage forms from Par—at a cost substantially higher than the widely prescribed dosage forms—and systematically and unlawfully filled its customers’ prescriptions with Par’s more expensive products, rather than the inexpensive dosage forms that were prescribed by physicians.”
Pharmacies cannot legally change a prescription without a physician’s express authorization; however, this class action lawsuit alleges Walgreens used expensive capsules manufactured by Par to fill prescriptions for the lower-priced tablets.
Top Settlements
For DES Daughters, Settled but not over… In a precedent-setting ruling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler has this week ordered 14 pharmaceutical companies to negotiate compensation for 53 women who brought a DES class action lawsuit against the drug companies. The women alleged their breast cancer was caused by their mothers’ use of an anti-miscarriage drug, taken decades ago, called Diethylstilbestrol, also called Stilboestrol or DES.
DES was a synthetic hormone given to six million women worldwide between the 1940s and the early 1970s to prevent miscarriage. The drug was taken off the market when studies showed serious Diethylstilbestrol side effects, including a link between DES and vaginal cancer–as well as a link between DES and breast cancer, in women exposed to the medication while in the womb.
Bowler’s decision, which will have far reaching consequences, came following expert testimony from the scientific community including the Chair of Harvard’s Department of Epidemiology. The testimony included facts supporting the women’s claims that prenatal exposure to DES substantially increased risk for breast cancer among “DES Daughters” over the age of 40. The data came from information collected by the National Cancer Institute DES Follow-Up Study, and shows that DES daughters over the age of 40 are roughly twice as likely to develop breast cancer as their counterparts who were not exposed to the drug in-utero.
Manufacturers of DES include Eli Lilly and Company and E. R. Squibbs & Sons, the predecessor to Bristol-Myers Squibb. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control an estimated 10 million women in the United States have been exposed to DES—including DES mothers, DES daughters, DES sons and DES grandchildren. Attorney’s representing the plaintiffs expect there may be many more women affected by DES who will come forward as a result of this ruling.
Now it’s time for JP Morgan Chase to write a check…as they have tentatively agreed to pay $110 million to settle an overdraft fees class-action lawsuit filed by customers who allege the bank charged excessive checking overdraft fees.
The lawsuit, filed in 2009 by Andrea Luquetta of Los Angeles, claimed JPMorgan engaged in “unfair, deceptive and unconscionable” assessment and collection of overdraft fees. Her complaint also refers to the practices of Washington Mutual, which JPMorgan bought in 2008.
Specifically, the lawsuit claimed that JP Morgan Chase processed its debit card transactions unfairly so it could maximize the overdraft fees customers paid, which, according to the lawsuit, was typically between $25 and $35 per overdraft. The lawsuit remains to be approved in court, and details of the settlement terms haven’t been made readily available yet, so watch this space for updates.
OK—they’re buying—that’s a wrap for this week. See you at the bar!
Week Adjourned: 11.11.11
November 11th, 2011. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
We’re Mad about Madoff! Still. Again. No kidding. Only this time someone’s naming a bank. Two former Bernard L. Madoff investors have filed a proposed consumer fraud class-action lawsuit against JP Morgan Chase & Co, claiming the banking giant was complicit in aiding Madoff in orchestrating the Ponzi scheme that robbed investors of more than $65 billion.
The lawsuit comes after a similar suit filed by the trustee appointed to represent Madoff’s victims was dismissed. The court ruled that the case filed by Irving Picard lacked standing, holding those claims belonged exclusively by the victims of Madoff’s fraud.
Among the allegations leveled in the lawsuit, investors charge that JP Morgan operated as Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC’s (BLMIS) primary banker for more than 20 years, and were faced with many indications that the fund was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme.
The lawsuit details that since 1986, all the money BLMIS collected from unwitting investors passed through JP Morgan in an account known as the 703 Account, where BLMIS co-mingled funds from investors.
The lawsuit contends that JP Morgan should have known that BLMIS’s activities were grossly inconsistent with those of an investment firm through a number of signs of impropriety.
JP Morgan, for example, was required to review a filing submitted by BLMIS to the SEC known as the Financial and Operational Combined Uniform Single Reports or FOCUS. That report, the lawsuit states, contained glaring irregularities that JP Morgan should have reported to the SEC, including factual omissions and errors, such as failing to report any commission revenue.
Beginning in 2006 JP Morgan sold structured investment products related to BLMIS feeder funds to its clients, profiting on those transactions as well. In the course of structuring those products, JP Morgan performed due-diligence on BLMIS and became suspicious that the BLMIS was a fraud but did not report its findings, the lawsuit alleges, but did redeem $145 million from BLMIS and $276 million from BLMIS feeder funds in 2008.
The lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Stephen and Leyla Hill, investors who incurred losses in BLMIS. It claims JP Morgan had knowing participation in a breach of trust, aided and abetted fraud, aided and abetted a breach of fiduciary duty, aided and abetted conversion and received unjust enrichment. The suit seeks damages for the plaintiffs.
Top Settlements
Big Banks paying Big Bucks: But are the bucks big enough? A $410 million settlement was approved this week—you may have seen it splashed all over the news—by a federal judge in Miami, ending an overdraft fees class action lawsuit against Bank of America (BoFA) that claimed the bank charged excessive overdraft fees.
Only thing is there are reportedly more than 13 million current and former customers who will be affected by the decision, customers who used debit cards over the past 10 years. Some reports suggest that most of the plaintiffs will likely only receive a fraction of the overdraft fees they paid. Ummm.
The lawsuit alleged that BoFA processed its debit card and check payments in such a way as to incur more customer overdrafts and consequently more fees. BoFA insists that its system was proper, despite the settlement. The settlement includes an estimated $123 million in legal fees for plaintiff’s lawyers…
Another bittersweet asbestos settlement this week. The widow of a man who died from peritoneal mesothelioma cancer has been awarded a settlement—a “substantial” sum—amount not publicly disclosed as compensation for loss of her husband, to put it bluntly. The settlement, negotiated on behalf of Mrs. Veraldo, was obtained midway through trial.
Mrs. Veraldo sued as executrix of the estate of her late husband, Randy Veraldo. He was 52 when he died in 2009, seven months after being diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma cancer, court records show.
Mr. Veraldo was a parts handler at a Teterboro, N.J., warehouse from 1978-85. The job required him to unpack clutch plates delivered on a near-daily basis from various suppliers. The clutch plates were said to contain asbestos, a mineral once widely used in the U.S. as a cheap insulating material until it was found to cause mesothelioma cancer.
Ok—That’s enough for this week. See you at the bar. And on this Veterans Day, a toast to all veterans, living and gone, the world over.
Week Adjourned: 7.23.11
July 24th, 2011. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
Unlikely Couple Teams up vs DuPont Imprelis. A Pennsylvania homeowner and an Indiana golf course company filed a nationwide class action lawsuit this week, against E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (“DuPont”). The charges? You may have read about them—that the use of a weed killer called Imprelis, made by DuPont, is causing widespread death among trees and other non-targeted vegetation across the country. Non-targeted vegetation? What is that—environmental collateral damage?
No wait—non-targeted vegetation means anything that’s not a weed. According to the lawsuit, DuPont failed to adequately disclose the risks for Imprelis damage to trees, even when applied as directed (oh great), and failed to provide adequate instructions for its safe application. Even better.
Lead plaintiff Marsha Shomo, a resident of Johnston, Pennsylvania, claims that the trees at her house of are dying after her lawn was sprayed with Imprelis. Included are two trees Shomo’s sister bought after her diagnosis with cancer, which took her sister’s life in 2001. “My sister was so anxious that the new little trees she bought be taken care of,” Shomo stated. “I promised her I would do that. I want DuPont to know that there is a problem out there and people do have special trees with many years invested in them. This isn’t right. I am filing this lawsuit to make sure DuPont answers to everyone harmed, and make DuPont act more responsibly in the future.”
As for the golf course, Plaintiff R.N. Thompson Golf, LLC, in fact owns and manages several golf courses in the greater Indianapolis area, including the Winding Ridge Golf Course and the Ironwood Gold Course. “We have witnessed catastrophic tree loss around our golf courses after the application of Imprelis, and have received numerous complaints and inquiries about the tree damage and appearance of our courses from our customers,” explained Mark Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of R.N. Thompson Golf, LLC. “We filed this lawsuit to inform other businesses and homeowners about this problem to let them know there is reason their trees are dying and to give them a course of action to fix the problem.”
If Imprelis is affecting your environment, check this Imprelis lawsuit out.
The proposed class consists of all persons and entities whose property was exposed to Imprelis between October 4, 2010 and the date of trial, in particular, those who own: (a) property on which Imprelis was applied; (b) trees or other vegetation whose roots extend under property on which Imprelis was applied or; (c) property onto which Imprelis migrated. Anyone with damaged trees is being advised to preserve the evidence.
Top Settlements
Drilling Deal. Amidst all the media coverage of a rather dubious practice of extracting natural gas called fracking —and the allegedly related water and health issues surrounding it, property owners on the Marcellus Shale belt in Pennsylvania have just won $14 million from a drilling company that reneged on their contracts to drill. Most people are trying to stop the drilling, but these property owners want it.
The out-of-court settlement was signed off by a Westmoreland judge, ending the two year civil suit brought by 230 property owners against State College-based Rex Energy. The fracking lawsuit was filed in 2009 by property owners in the rural areas of Cook, Derry, Fairfield, Ligonier, Mt. Pleasant and Unity townships. The lawsuit alleged that Rex Energy reneged on 137 drilling contracts the owners claimed they had finalized in 2008. The property owners also claimed that the company failed to honor promises of bonus and rental payments on the drilling leases.
According to a report on Triblive.com, the disputes involves oil and gas drilling rights on about 7,200 acres, or almost 11 square miles. The settlement permits landowners who had not signed leases with other companies and still wished to sign with Rex to do so at $2,500 per acre. The new, five-year leases give landowners a 15 percent royalty on any gas produced. Better get Fracking!
Finally…Score One for the Little Guy. Bank of Hawaii reached a tentative settlement with account holders this week concerning an overdraft fees class action lawsuit brought pissed-off customers who alleged the bank engaged in a systematic policy of re-ordering debit card transactions from highest dollar amount to lowest dollar amount. You could almost recite that sentence in your sleep it’s so common, unfortunately. The lawsuit claimed that this alleged practice allowed the bank to deplete the customer’s available funds as quickly as possible while maximizing the number of overdraft fees.
The Bank of Hawaii settlement amount is $9 million, and, if approved will be used to refund class members for overdraft fees they were charged. “The tentative settlement, subject to documentation and court approvals, provides for a payment by the company of $9 million into a class settlement fund the proceeds of which will be used to refund class members, and to pay attorneys’ fees, administrative and other costs, in exchange for a complete release of all claims asserted against the company,” the bank said in a filing with the Securities Exchange Commission.
OK. That’s it for this week. See you at the Bar.
Week Adjourned: 5.20.11
May 20th, 2011. By LucyC
Top Class Actions
AXA axing pay? Pay—overtime, regular time, anytime in fact that requires payment is a recurring theme in class action lawsuits. This week, thousands of commissioned US employees at global financial giant AXA filed a potential class action against the company alleging they worked as many as 60 hours a week, but weren’t paid minimum wage or overtime.
Because this is apparently a long-running problem—the suit alleged the violations go back as far as 2005 —the potential class could consist of more than 1,000 current and former employees: from the company’s financial product marketers and financial product marketer trainees to cold callers, according to the suit.
Employees of the company were paid a $24,000 base salary plus a percentage share of any commissions earned by licensed brokers, if they were successful in obtaining new accounts for the brokers, according to court papers. So, maybe we’ll pay you—but you can put in the hours anyway? Am I reading this correctly? Failure to pay overtime violates the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act, (FLSA) which covers employees paid commissions.
One employee, Bennet Marcus, of New York City, worked from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. five days a week and was unpaid during his training, according to the suit. He worked for AXA from October 2010 through February 2011 as a trainee and cold caller. Where’s Charles Dickens when we need him?
FYI—AXA is one of the world’s largest insurance companies with 2010 revenues of 91 billion Euros—$129 billion. In case you’re having trouble calling the company to mind—their popular TV commercials feature a 900-pound gorilla–that’s him above. No small irony there.
The suit, which requests a jury trial, seeks unspecified back wages and overtime, damages, interest, attorney fees and costs. In addition to the claims under federal law, the plaintiffs also are seeking damages for underpayment of wages under New York State law for AXA’s workers in New York.
Top Settlements
From unpaid overtime to retirement…it’s all about employees. This week a federal judge approved a $30 million settlement ending a 5-year old ERISA class-action filed against Duke Energy.
The lawsuit, brought by 20,000 class members who worked for Duke Energy Corp, alleged the company broke federal law when it changed its retirement plan. Now why would they want to do that?
According to the Greenville News, Duke workers said the Charlotte, N.C., company violated the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 in how it administered and calculated benefits under its retirement cash balance plan. A penny saved is a penny earned—not a penny pinched.
UMB made the most of his weekend? UMB Financial Corp, has agreed to pony up $7.8 million in settlement monies, potentially ending the class action lawsuit brought against it in April 2010. The suit alleged that UMB Bank, a subsidiary of UMB Financial Corp, unfairly charged overdraft fees by treating pending deposits differently than pending withdrawals, thereby rearranging withdrawals to maximize overdraft fees.
By way of example, David Johnson who filed the suit, claims that UMB charged him 17 overdraft fees, each in the amount of $36, over a single weekend. This included a $36 overdraft fee on a eighty-five cent purchase. UMB then charged Johnson additional overdraft fees and negative balance fees after these 17 fees depleted the hundreds of dollars of available funds in his account.
Nice! That’s certainly putting your customers’ needs first.
The settlement, subject to approval by Jackson County Circuit Court, includes no admission of wrongdoing. Of course it doesn’t. But money talks.
That’s enough good news for one week. See you at the bar.
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