A dispute over a two-year statute of limitations brought the city of Ventura County before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this week. The city has accused Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Chase Bank of making discriminatory loans against Latino and African-American borrowers in the city. The loans those borrowers were offered were more expensive than loans offered to similarly-situated white people, and those more expensive loans, in turn, ended up in more foreclosures. If true, that would violate the federal Fair Housing Act, and the city filed lawsuits under that law. The theory was that the extra foreclosures among minority homeowners led to a cascade of plummeting property values in minority areas. The big banks’ behavior not only cost the city property tax revenue but also left it on the hook for policing and maintenance in the foreclosure-devastated areas. The total cost of foreclosure blight and unfair lending in this case? An…Read More
The Federal Trade Commission has charged several tech support companies with fraudulently using pop up warnings as ads to scare thousands of people into purchasing unnecessary services. The defendants, who collectively have operated under the name Global Access Technical Support, were ordered by a federal court to stop all business operations and all their assets have been frozen. The accused tech companies allegedly posted ads online that mimicked ads from legitimate sources like Microsoft or Apple. They would warn consumers of virus or malware on their computers, often accompanied by loud alarms. Ads were difficult to navigate around or close and required people to call a toll-free number. Believing the warning to be legitimate, consumers would call the number and subsequently spend $200 to $400 to fix a problem that didn’t exist. Consumers would give the tech company rep remote access to their computers, taking hours to complete the “fix” and often ending up causing harm to…Read More
If you feel that you have been harmed as a result of the conduct of a business, or you have been approached with a settlement offer from a business, you need to speak with an attorney before you take any action on your own. Here are some reasons you should speak to an attorney before taking a DIY approach to the law: Lawyers have years of experience in this area of law and are required to keep updated as the law changes. The state of California has highly specific consumer protection laws and decades of case law from state and federal courts that attorneys spend their careers learning. A lawyer can consider the specific facts of your case and provide you personalized analysis based on their knowledge of the law. You will be provided with the guidance and choices to make informed decisions. Businesses have attorneys, so should you. If you are representing yourself in…Read More
Prerecorded calls, or robocalls, are not only annoying, they are illegal. Despite this, automated sales calls have increased at an alarming rate in recent years – mostly due to internet based dialing systems. What is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) doing to fight against these illegal calls? And what can you do to make sure you are well informed and protected? The FTC is aggressively targeting telemarketers who use robocallers. To date they have filed more than 100 lawsuits against 600-plus companies and individuals responsible for robocalls and Do Not Call list violations. Those who violate these laws can be fined up to $16,000 per call. In 2009, the FTC established rules that protect consumers from robocalls, making them illegal unless the telemarketer has written permission from the consumer. It is difficult to track down those who violate these rules, as calls can be made from anywhere in the world and display fake caller ID…Read More
You purchase a new vehicle and are thrilled with it, until it starts to need repairs. Not just a few repairs, but a lot of them. In fact, it starts to feel like your car spends more time at the service shop than it does with you. If this happens, your car might be a “lemon,” or a defective vehicle. Thanks to the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, also known at the California Lemon Law, you have options to remedy the situation. California’s Lemon law protects consumers from serious car warranty defects that the dealer or manufacturer can’t repair after a “reasonable number” of attempts. In many cases, you may be entitled to a replacement vehicle or refund of what you paid. The Lemon Law also has a presumption guideline which states that a vehicle is considered a lemon if any of the following criteria are met within 18 months of delivery to the buyer or…Read More
Odds are either you or someone you know has received an IRS scam phone call recently. Callers impersonating the IRS claim that the receiver of the call owes in back taxes, and demands immediate repayment. Many people fell victim to this scam, and approximately 15,000 people to date have been cheated out of a total of $300 million. The U.S. government fought back this week. The Justice Department has indicted 56 people and five Indian companies in connection with these calls, charging them with wire fraud, money laundering and other crimes. A total of 20 people have been arrested in the United States, and the government is seeking extradition for the remaining individuals accused of these crimes who are in India. According to the indictment, the call center operators “threatened potential victims with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation if they did not pay taxes or penalties to the government.” They gathered phone numbers and other information…Read More
In January 2017, President Trump’s team held a “listening session” in which they sought input from several colleges. A surprising invitee to this session was DeVry University, which a month earlier had agreed to pay $100 million to settle an FTC lawsuit that accused DeVry of deceptive advertising. During President Obama’s administration, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Education had targeted for-profit colleges like ITT, Corinthian College, and DeVry due to their high student loan default rates and their false and misleading advertising. Corinthian College and ITT both shut down. Things were not looking good for DeVry and other for-profit colleges as the federal government and the states were increasingly seeking to protect consumers (including active military and veterans) from fraudulent conduct. Since Donald Trump was elected as president, for-profit colleges have seen a new day. This is due to an expectation that President Trump will roll back consumer-protecting regulations in favor of…Read More
If you have been following our blog, you are familiar with the charges the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought against DeVry University for making spurious claims about its job placement rates for graduates. At issue is the methodology the institution used in determining the percentage of graduates employed. According to the FTC, the school included students whose employment did not result from having earned a DeVry degree. Those tallied were students employed before graduating from DeVry and those not employed in their field of study. The problem with these deceptive accounting practices is that it encourages students to incur debt in order to earn a degree that may not be worth the time and tuition paid to earn college credits. Although students may struggle to obtain jobs they trained to fill, their inability to land a job does not forestall tuition payments from accumulating. For DeVry graduates, this economic situation is especially pressing because so many…Read More
