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Week Adjourned: 8.6.10

Top Class Actions

Could Say He was Over his Overdraft Fees. I think these guys deserve a Business As Usual, As Usual award. Commerce Bancshares, a Kansas City-based financial institution operating simply as Commerce Bank in the state of Missouri is being sued by a client who claims the company’s bank overdraft fees violate state law.

The plaintiff, Harold J. Joseph Jr., has accused the banking chain of manipulating the sequence of debit card purchases in an attempt to maximize the number and size of overdraft fees that they can impose.

Any of this sound familiar? Excessive bank overdraft fees lawsuits have been filed and/or settled against a variety of banks, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, M&T Bank and Wachovia. The lawsuits allege that banks charge excessive overdraft fees when customers’ accounts go into overdraft. They further allege that the banks use a number of unethical practices to push their accounts into overdraft, such as misrepresenting customers’ account balances and reordering debits and credits to accounts.

New regulations that will take effect by mid-August seek to rectify this problem by making overdraft protection an opt-in service and by regulating the terms of the action.

FYI: Information about Commerce Bancshares second quarter earnings were posted in a press release July 21. Those of you hit with excessive overdraft fees may find the numbers interesting…”Commerce Continue reading “Week Adjourned: 8.6.10”

Week Adjourned: 6.12.09

Top Class Actions

Miss-Match.com? The Dallas-based internet dating site Match.com is being sued over allegations that it misleads its customers about potential matches with people who are no longer active members.

The suit was filed by Sean McGinn, a resident of Brooklyn, NY, who alleges that most of the profiles on the site are for people who have cancelled their memberships or never subscribed. The complaint reportedly states “When a subscriber cancels their subscription, their profile continues to appear to be that of an active subscriber.” And, “Nothing indicates to the viewer their limited access to read e-mails or respond to them.” Ouch—kinda like the cyber version of a blind date who doesn’t show…

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Week Adjourned: 6.5.09

Top Class Actions

Ask for Generic? Mmmaybe not. Sometimes it’s best to skip the generic version—and such may be the case with Budeprion XL, a generic formulation of the antidepressant Wellbutrin XL; the makers of Budeprion XL are the subject of a class action lawsuit filed this week in California. The problem seems to be that the generic form of the drug is not as effective and possibly not as safe as the patented version, so the suit alleges. The FDA has so far said the drug is safe, but they could order a special clinical trial to better assess the safety and efficacy of the generic version.

Top Settlements

“Expedia-dot-CON?” Maybe that’s how the jingle should go after the recent judgement against the internet travel site. Unhappy customers who joined a class action lawsuit alleging breach of contract will see the travel giant fork over $184 million in settlement monies. What did they do? Expedia bundled the service-fee charges with taxes into a single line item, failing to disclose the separate amounts of each to consumers. Because Expedia only remits taxes based on the wholesale price—which it never disclosed to consumers—the taxes appear higher to consumers than they actually are, and Expedia is able to mask the considerable size of its service fees. Nice.

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Week Adjouned: 5.29.09

So, where to start this week?

Top Class Actions:

Wanna be a Hooters girl? Cough up $9.95 for those hot pants (they’re for sale at Hooters—seriously). That’s what eight ladies who used to work at Hooters, specifically 4 Hooters franchises in California, claim in a class action they filed over the working conditions and costs associated with the infamous waitressing positions. Their allegations claim almost Victorian conditions, including having to buy their own trademark uniforms from the restaurants; paying for cash shortages or customer walkouts, or face being disciplined (what could that mean?); and not being paid to work special events. One wonders how much of their earning the waitresses actually take home. You Go Girls!

Many happy returns at Wal-Mart? Wal-Mart’s also back in the news, and the courts, this time the class action complaint alleges that the world’s largest retailer is not living up to the terms of its own return policy. It seems they’re getting petty over sales tax, in that people returning goods to a Wal-Mart store location with a lower applicable sales tax rate than where the merchandise was originally purchased, get reimbursed the lesser sales tax rate. So what happens to the left-over sales tax that’s not reimbursed? Does that go to the government?

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