Apr 18, 2019 | Consumer Protection, Employment & Technology Archive
Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. is making consumers aware that on February 27, 2019, a class action lawsuit was filed against Adobe, Inc. (“Adobe”) in United States District Court for the Northern District of California, allegedly, for “routinely violat[ing]” the Telephone Consumer Protection Act “. . . by using an automatic telephone dialing system to place non-emergency calls to telephone numbers assigned to a cellular telephone service without prior express consent, in that [Adobe] place[d] autodialed calls to wrong or reassigned cellular telephone numbers.”
The class action complaint alleged that Defendant Adobe “placed at least one call to Plaintiff’s cellular telephone number . . . from telephone number (800) 685-3598. Telephone number (800) 685-3598, according to the complaint, “[w]hen dialed, . . . delivers a prerecorded message[] that states: ‘Thanks for calling Adobe customer assistance and support . . . .’”
Do You Believe You Are a Victim of Illegal Robocalls, Text Messages, “Junk” Faxes or Telemarketing Sales Calls?
If you have received illegal robocalls, text messages, “junk” faxes or telemarketing sales calls, you may be able to recover at least $500 for each illegal call, text or fax you received and, possibly, as much as $1,500 for each illegal call, text message or facsimile that was made either willfully or knowingly in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
To help evaluate your potential legal claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, please complete KLF’s confidential Robocall Questionnaire or, if you prefer to speak with an attorney, please complete the form above on the right, e-mail [email protected] or contact Michael Yarnoff, Esq., [email protected], (215) 792-6676, Ext. 804, for a free, no-obligation evaluation of your potential legal rights.
Apr 16, 2019 | Consumer Protection, Employment & Technology Archive
Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. is making consumers aware that on April 15, 2019, a class action complaint was filed in United States District Court, Central District of California, against Hyundai Motor America, Inc. (“Hyundai Motor”) “. . . for legal and equitable remedies resulting from the illegal actions of Hyundai Motor . . . in transmitting unsolicited, autodialed SMS or MMS text messages, en masse, to Plaintiff’s cellular device and the cellular devices of numerous other individuals across the country, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act . . . .”
According to the class action complaint:
In or around early January 2019, Plaintiff frequented the Russell Westbrook Hyundai of Garden Grove car dealership (the “Garden Grove Dealership”) – one of Defendant’s franchisee dealerships located in Garden Grove, California – to test drive one of Defendant’s automobiles available for purchase there.
Shortly after visiting the Garden Grove Dealership, [Hyundai Motor] transmitted or caused to be transmitted, by itself or through an intermediary or intermediaries, including without limitation one or more of its agent(s) at the Garden Grove Dealership, one or more SMS or MMS text messages to the [Plaintiff’s cellular] [n]umber without Plaintiff’s prior express written consent . . . . [Emphasis added]
Further, according to the complaint, “[t]he source of the above-depicted unsolicited text message that Defendant transmitted to the [Plaintiff’s cellular] [n]umber was (714) 577-2046, which is a telephone number leased by Defendant or Defendant’s agent(s) or affiliate(s) and is used for operating Defendant’s text message marketing program.”
Do You Believe You Are a Victim of Illegal Robocalls, Text Messages, “Junk” Faxes or Telemarketing Sales Calls?
If you have received illegal robocalls, text messages, “junk” faxes or telemarketing sales calls, you may be able to recover at least $500 for each illegal call, text or fax you received and, possibly, as much as $1,500 for each illegal call, text message or facsimile that was made either willfully or knowingly in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
To help evaluate your potential legal claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, please complete KLF’s confidential Robocall Questionnaire or, if you prefer to speak with an attorney, please complete the form above on the right, e-mail [email protected] or contact Michael Yarnoff, Esq., [email protected], (215) 792-6676, Ext. 804, for a free, no-obligation evaluation of your potential legal rights.
Apr 16, 2019 | Consumer Protection, Employment & Technology Archive
Avant, LLC to Settle FTC Charges It Engaged in Deceptive and Unfair Loan Servicing Practices – Will Pay $3.85M For Harming Thousands of Consumers
On April 15, 2019, the FTC announced that Avant, LLC (“Avant”), an online lending company, has agreed to settle the Federal Trade Commission’s charges that it engaged in deceptive and unfair loan servicing practices, such as imposing unauthorized charges on consumers’ accounts and unlawfully requiring consumers to consent to automatic payments from their bank accounts.
According to the FTC’s complaint, Avant offers unsecured installment loans for consumers through its website. The FTC charged that in many cases, Avant falsely advertised that it would accept payments by credit or debit cards, when in fact it rejected these forms of payments. The FTC also alleged that Avant withdrew money from consumers’ accounts or charged their credit cards without authorization. In some instances, Avant charged consumers duplicate payments without authorization, improperly taking consumers’ monthly payments twice or more in one month. For example, one consumer’s monthly payment, according to the FTC, was debited from his account 11 times in a single day.
Allegedly, in many cases when consumers complained about the unauthorized charges, Avant insisted that the consumers authorized the charges and refused to provide a refund. Despite hundreds of consumer complaints about unauthorized charges and internal documents repeatedly acknowledging this problem, the company, according to the FTC, continued to charge consumers without authorization.
The FTC also charged the online lending company with the following law violations:
- Failing to properly and timely credit payments made by check;
- Providing inaccurate payoff quotes to consumers;
- Collecting additional amounts even after consumers paid the quoted payoff amount; and
- Violating the Telemarketing Sales Rule and the Electronic Fund Transfer Act by requiring borrowers to agree to recurring automatic debits of their bank account as a condition of obtaining a loan.
The stipulated final order imposes a judgment of $3.85 million, which will be returned to consumers who were harmed by Avant’s unlawful practices. Further, under the settlement order, Avant will be prohibited from taking unauthorized payments and from collecting payment by means of remotely created check. Avant also is prohibited from misrepresenting: the methods of payment accepted for monthly payments, partial payments, payoffs, or any other purpose; the amount of payment that will be sufficient to pay off in its entirety the balance of an account; when payments will be applied or credited; or any material fact regarding payments, fees, or charges.
Source: FTC.gov
Apr 4, 2019 | Consumer Protection, Employment & Technology Archive
Kehoe Law Firm, P.C. is making consumers aware that on April 3, 2019, a class action lawsuit was filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Coldwell Banker Real Estate, LLC (“Coldwell Banker”) and NRT LLC (“NRT”) to stop Coldwell Banker and NRT “. . . from directing realtors to violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act [‘TCPA’] by making unsolicited autodialed calls to consumers without their consent, including calls to consumers registered on the national Do Not Call registry (“DNC”), and to otherwise obtain injunctive and monetary relief for all persons injured by the conduct of Defendants. . . .” [Emphasis in original]
According to the class action complaint,
. . . Coldwell Banker and NRT direct realtors to cold call consumers to sell them Coldwell Banker’s realty services. This includes specific instructions to call consumers who have previously listed their properties for sale with other realtors, but whose listings with those other realtors expired without a sale of the property.
In addition to directly instructing realtors to make unsolicited cold calls to obtain listings, Coldwell Banker and NRT provide realtors with telephone numbers and other analytics for identifying leads to cold call, scripts for the cold calls, and preferred pricing from Coldwell Banker’s partner vendors for other cold calling related training and products, including autodialers.
Ultimately, Coldwell Banker’s and NRT’s marketing plan for NRT realtors involves cold calling consumers, with a focus on calling consumers who have recently expired property listings. This is troubling since cold calling consumers without consent violates the TCPA. [Emphasis added]
Allegedly, the “marketing plan” of Coldwell Banker “. . . resulted in [the Plaintiff] receiving unsolicited, autodialed calls from [three] different Coldwell Banker and NRT realtors to his cellular phone number registered on the DNC. This all occurred after the multiple listing service listing for Plaintiff’s property, which was maintained by Plaintiff’s former realtor and which did not include any of Plaintiff’s telephone numbers, was removed from the multiple listing service without Plaintiff having sold his home.”
Do You Believe You Are a Victim of Illegal Robocalls, Text Messages, “Junk” Faxes or Telemarketing Sales Calls?
If you have received illegal robocalls, text messages, “junk” faxes or telemarketing sales calls, you may be able to recover at least $500 for each illegal call, text or fax you received and, possibly, as much as $1,500 for each illegal call, text message or facsimile that was made either willfully or knowingly in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
To help evaluate your potential legal claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, please complete KLF’s confidential Robocall Questionnaire or, if you prefer to speak with an attorney, please complete the form above on the right, e-mail [email protected] or contact Michael Yarnoff, Esq., [email protected], (215) 792-6676, Ext. 804, for a free, no-obligation evaluation of your potential legal rights.
Apr 4, 2019 | Consumer Protection, Employment & Technology Archive
On March 27, 2019, the FTC announced that Office Depot, Inc. and a California-based tech support software provider agreed to pay a total of $35 million to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that the companies tricked customers into buying millions of dollars’ worth of computer repair and technical services by deceptively claiming their software had found malware symptoms on the customers’ computers.
Office Depot has agreed to pay $25 million while its software supplier, Support.com, Inc., has agreed to pay $10 million as part of their settlements with the FTC. The FTC intends to use these funds to provide refunds to consumers.
In its complaint, the FTC alleges that Support.com worked with Office Depot for nearly a decade to sell technical support services at its stores. Office Depot and Support.com used PC Health Check, a software program, as a sales tool to convince consumers to purchase tech repair services from Office Depot and OfficeMax, Inc., which merged in 2013.
According to the FTC, the Office Depot companies marketed the program as a free “PC check-up” or tune-up service to help improve a computer’s performance and scan for viruses and other security threats. Support.com, which received tens of millions of dollars in revenue from Office Depot, remotely performed the tech repair services once consumers made the purchase.
The FTC alleged that while Office Depot claimed the program detected malware symptoms on consumers’ computers, the actual results presented to consumers were based entirely on whether consumers answered “yes” to four questions they were asked at the beginning of the PC Health Check program. These included questions about whether the computer ran slow, received virus warnings, crashed often, or displayed pop-up ads or other problems that prevented the user from browsing the Internet.
The complaint alleged that Office Depot and Support.com configured the PC Health Check Program to report that the scan found malware symptoms or infections whenever consumers answered “yes” to at least one of these four questions, despite the fact that the scan had no connection to the “malware symptoms” results. After displaying the results of the scan, the program also displayed a “view recommendation” button with a detailed description of the tech services consumers were encouraged to purchase—services that could cost hundreds of dollars—to fix the problems.
The FTC alleged that both Office Depot and Support.com have been aware of concerns and complaints about the PC Health Check program since at least 2012. For example, one OfficeMax employee complained to corporate management in 2012, saying “I cannot justify lying to a customer or being TRICKED into lying to them for our store to make a few extra dollars.” Despite this and other internal warnings, Office Depot, according to the FTC, continued until late 2016 to advertise and use the PC Health Check program and pushed its store managers and employees to generate sales from the program, according to the complaint.
The FTC alleged that both companies violated the FTC Act’s prohibition against deceptive practices.
In addition to the monetary payment, the proposed settlement prohibits Office Depot from making misrepresentations about the security or performance of a consumer’s electronic device and requires the company to ensure its existing and future software providers do not engage in such conduct. As part of its proposed settlement, Support.com cannot make, or provide others with the means to make, misrepresentations about the performance or detection of security issues on consumer electronic devices.
Source: FTC.gov
Feb 27, 2019 | Consumer Protection, Employment & Technology Archive
The U.S. Department of Labor recently announced that two Philadelphia restaurants J.H.S.K, Inc. and Osaka Japan Restaurant, Inc., both doing business as Osaka, and their owner, have agreed to a consent judgment ordering them to pay $935,000 in back wages and liquidated damages to 201 employees for willful violations of the minimum wage and overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The employers must also pay a $65,000 civil money penalty. The consent judgment, according to the Department of Labor, must be approved by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The employers agreed to the $1 million settlement midway through the first day of a weeklong bench trial. The consent judgment permanently enjoins the employers from violating the FLSA in the future.
Investigations conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) exposed willful violations of the FLSA at the Osaka restaurants in Philadelphia and Lansdale, Pennsylvania.
According to the Department of Labor, WHD investigators determined that from at least September 1, 2013, the employers deducted and pocketed 15 percent of customer tips charged on credit cards, well in excess of the 4 percent fee charged by credit card processors.
The employers also failed to notify tipped employees, including servers, bartenders, bussers, and hosts, that the restaurants were claiming a portion of their customer tips as a credit toward the minimum wage, which is required under the FLSA. Because the employers claimed the tips as a “credit” for the difference between the employees’ actual hourly wages and the $7.25 full minimum wage, these actions meant that the employers failed to comply with the FLSA’s tip credit requirements and therefore violated the FLSA’s minimum wage requirement.
Additionally, according to the Department of Labor, the employers violated the FLSA’s overtime provisions since at least September 1, 2013. The employers failed to pay employees the proper time-and-a-half overtime premium for work beyond 40 hours per week. Hourly tipped employees received straight time for all hours worked, even when their time records clearly showed them working more than 40 hours. The employers also paid sushi chefs, hibachi chefs, kitchen cooks, and dishwashers flat daily rates ranging from $80-$150 for all hours worked, even when their time records clearly showed them working upwards of 50-60 hours per week. The company also failed to maintain records required by the FLSA.
The FLSA requires that covered, nonexempt employees be paid at least the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour for all hours worked, plus time and one-half their regular rates, including commissions, bonuses and incentive pay, for hours worked beyond 40 per week. Employers also must maintain accurate time and payroll records.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor
