3 ms·

Related personal story. I had dealings with a national technology-based company over the past several years that involved fraud. Not on my part. It was obvious

Related personal story. I had dealings with a national technology-based company over the past several years that involved fraud. Not on my part. It was obvious to me after some investigation that they had stolen several hundred dollars from me by causing charges on another account without asking my permission or clearly indicating that charges were being made. (I had to investigate to figure it out) I was willing to let it slide and move on. Lesson learned. Then I saw a commercial for the company and realized: they were doing the same thing to tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of other customers. It was really kind of mind-boggling when I thought about it. Who knows how much money was involved. So I looked up a lawyer in a nearby large town who had experience and knowledge about class action suits in the technology arena. We had a nice chat. I had accumulated a ton of paperwork to show what was going on. He agreed. They were hurting a lot of people. On purpose. But he couldn't take the case. Was it lack of proof? Broken laws? What? It was arbitration. If I understood him correctly, arbitration clauses are destroying class action lawsuits. So you can legally screw over tons of people, then insist arbitration with the few that care if you get caught. And you get screwed over? You'd better not say anything about it because then you'd be slandering the company. After all, they haven't been found guilty of anything, right? So how about regulatory agencies, I asked? Surely this violates some regulation that they operate under. His view, if I understood him correctly, was that regulation was entirely political. It had nothing to do with them breaking any rules. It certain political contexts certain companies got the hammer. In certain other political contexts, they did not. In this particular case, he knew from the lay of the land that it was not worth pursuing. I'm still taken back by our conversation. I had no idea that arbitration had effectively destroyed class action. I don't remember this ever being reported anywhere.

protonfish 8y ago
I literally don't understand how if a person takes $100 out of my wallet I can report them for criminal theft, but if that same person does it as part of a business, that's somehow a civil issue.
- posterboy 8y ago
  In a civil issue they either have it given by you, or they hold back when giving you something, but they don't take from you - or they have your written general permission to take. It's criminal exactly when there is no other law code allowing it. Very simple. Very wrong but based on good faith.
gamblor956 8y ago
If this story was true, the attorney should have told you that you could report it to your state's attorney general, which would have resulted in civil and criminal lawsuits filed against the company by the state (which is not a party to the contract and not bound by the arbitration clause). And the settlements for these kinds of cases always involves refunding the customers. Again, if the story was true, there were ways to hold the company to the rules, get your money back, and avoid any legal costs of your own.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  IANAL. If you are, why don't we set up a call. I'll explain it to you and you can tell me where I'm wrong. Then I won't tell a misleading story like this again. I can only relate to you what I heard. I viewed what happened as criminal. The company would have viewed it as covered under our contract. Nothing to see here, folks! I'm guessing the AG wouldn't take up a complex legal criminal case involving tech if it looked like there was a good chance it could end up a civil matter. And so we're still in civil court. I tried proposing several different remedies during our talk. What if I sued by myself? It might work. I might get part of the monies back. Or not. In either case it'd take a while. What if I went to the press? If there's no proof of anything, and I don't have a lawyer, I could be getting into risky legal territory. It went on like this for a few minutes. Admittedly, not being an attorney, I probably forgot to mention a lot of things. I can assure you this happened. And I'm happy to explain it to anybody that would like to hear it off-the-record. It's a fucked-up situation and I would love more than anything else for there to be some remedy like you're describing. It's just not worth my time, or the time of the attorney I consulted, to chase down a remedy that's only going to be a few thousand bucks. Situations like this are why you have class action suits in the first place. Hell, I'll give you the name of the attorney and you can call and ask him.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    I am a lawyer but I charge $600/hour for my services. I do not offer free consults or legal advice. (What I've offered so far, including this post, doesn't constitute legal advice, which is the application of law to the specific facts of a particular case. Speaking in generalities doesn't result in a professional relationship. ) CA provides an online form for your type of complaint: https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-busine... If you would prefer to call them directly it's best to call your local CA office (numbers available on their website) and they'll connect you to the appropriate person. (I recommend this as they respond to you immediately; the form can take several weeks.) I'm guessing the AG wouldn't take up a complex legal criminal case involving tech if it looked like there was a good chance it could end up a civil matter. And so we're still in civil court. I'm not sure why you think this. What you described sounds like fraud, which is pretty simple from a legal perspective to investigate and prosecute at the scale you described. And the State AG would never turn down a criminal case just because they could also go after them civilly, as the criminal case strengthens their hand in the civil case.

protonfish 8y ago

I literally don't understand how if a person takes $100 out of my wallet I can report them for criminal theft, but if that same person does it as part of a business, that's somehow a civil issue.

posterboy 8y ago
In a civil issue they either have it given by you, or they hold back when giving you something, but they don't take from you - or they have your written general permission to take. It's criminal exactly when there is no other law code allowing it. Very simple. Very wrong but based on good faith.

gamblor956 8y ago

If this story was true, the attorney should have told you that you could report it to your state's attorney general, which would have resulted in civil and criminal lawsuits filed against the company by the state (which is not a party to the contract and not bound by the arbitration clause). And the settlements for these kinds of cases always involves refunding the customers. Again, if the story was true, there were ways to hold the company to the rules, get your money back, and avoid any legal costs of your own.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
IANAL. If you are, why don't we set up a call. I'll explain it to you and you can tell me where I'm wrong. Then I won't tell a misleading story like this again. I can only relate to you what I heard. I viewed what happened as criminal. The company would have viewed it as covered under our contract. Nothing to see here, folks! I'm guessing the AG wouldn't take up a complex legal criminal case involving tech if it looked like there was a good chance it could end up a civil matter. And so we're still in civil court. I tried proposing several different remedies during our talk. What if I sued by myself? It might work. I might get part of the monies back. Or not. In either case it'd take a while. What if I went to the press? If there's no proof of anything, and I don't have a lawyer, I could be getting into risky legal territory. It went on like this for a few minutes. Admittedly, not being an attorney, I probably forgot to mention a lot of things. I can assure you this happened. And I'm happy to explain it to anybody that would like to hear it off-the-record. It's a fucked-up situation and I would love more than anything else for there to be some remedy like you're describing. It's just not worth my time, or the time of the attorney I consulted, to chase down a remedy that's only going to be a few thousand bucks. Situations like this are why you have class action suits in the first place. Hell, I'll give you the name of the attorney and you can call and ask him.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  I am a lawyer but I charge $600/hour for my services. I do not offer free consults or legal advice. (What I've offered so far, including this post, doesn't constitute legal advice, which is the application of law to the specific facts of a particular case. Speaking in generalities doesn't result in a professional relationship. ) CA provides an online form for your type of complaint: https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-busine... If you would prefer to call them directly it's best to call your local CA office (numbers available on their website) and they'll connect you to the appropriate person. (I recommend this as they respond to you immediately; the form can take several weeks.) I'm guessing the AG wouldn't take up a complex legal criminal case involving tech if it looked like there was a good chance it could end up a civil matter. And so we're still in civil court. I'm not sure why you think this. What you described sounds like fraud, which is pretty simple from a legal perspective to investigate and prosecute at the scale you described. And the State AG would never turn down a criminal case just because they could also go after them civilly, as the criminal case strengthens their hand in the civil case.