A California man who spent thousands on popular “penny auction” site DealDash.com says that not only is the company misleading bidders into believing they are can score huge savings, but that many of the incredibly expensive brands sold on DealDash are actually worthless generics from a company with an alleged connection to DealDash’s founder and biggest stakeholder. [More]
lawsuits
Customer Accuses DealDash Of Selling “Cheap, Generic” Products Disguised As Independent Luxury Brands
By 4.17.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Collectors Say Eli Manning Knew Company Was Selling Phony Memorabilia
By 4.14.17
Would you rather pay thousands of dollars for a football helmet worn by your favorite athlete in a championship game, or for a piece of equipment that has never seen action in a game? If you’re a collector of sports memorabilia, the difference between the two can be thousands of dollars. Collectors suing a well-known sports memorabilia firm, now claim to have evidence that New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning aided in this deception by providing “game-worn” items that had never seen time in an NFL game. [More]
Passenger Dragged Off United Airlines Flight Will “Probably” Sue, But Not Yet
By 4.13.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
In a press conference today, the legal team for the passenger who was forcibly removed from his seat and dragged off a United Airlines flight on Sunday by Chicago aviation officers who have since been placed on administrative leave pending investigation says the 69-year-old man will “probably” file a lawsuit over the incident, but not quite yet. [More]
Verizon FiOS Customers Say They Were Tricked Into Paying For Unnecessary Set-Top Boxes
By 4.12.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
If you’ve got Verizon FiOS and you’re paying fees each month for multiple cable boxes, you may be wasting a lot of money. The pay-TV provider has an app that will give you live access to FiOS on your TV through a number of devices that are less expensive than a leased set-top box. Is it deceptive for Verizon to let its customers continue paying for leased boxes without advising them of cheaper options? [More]
Does The Fine Print In United’s Contract Prevent Kicked-Off Passenger From Suing Airline?
By 4.11.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
A lot of people are saying the United Airlines passenger who was forcibly booted from a Sunday afternoon flight should sue the carrier, while others say he can’t sue because of fine print in United’s 37,000-word customer contract. Turns out he probably can take the airline to court, but whether or not he’d prevail is unclear. [More]
Customer Sues Charter For Selling Their Data Without Consent
By 4.11.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
It may become one of the defining questions of our age: Does your personal data become someone else’s asset as soon as you go online? One Charter customer says that he has a right to determine how his data is used, and that the cable/internet company failed to get his permission or disclose that it would be using this information for its own gain. [More]
Can A ‘Single-Family Home’ Have 24 Bedrooms?
By 4.7.17 — Updated: 4.9.17
Unless you’re regularly hosting the likes of the seventh Earl of Chichester at Downton Abbey, your notion of the term “single family home” probably doesn’t include anything more than a few bedrooms. But one homeowner in North Carolina’s Outer Banks has spent four years trying to convince local lawmakers that this term applies to her under-construction 24-bedroom home. [More]
Twitter Says Trump Administration Has Dropped Demand For User’s Identity
By 4.7.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Twitter has dismissed its lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, saying that the Trump Administration has rescinded its demand that the social media service turn over information about the real identity of a Twitter user who claims to be a federal employee. [More]
Court Orders Pornhub To Identify Potentially Thousands Of Users
By 4.7.17
Just like any other copyright holder, porn studios can — and do — exercise their rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to force X-rated “tube” sites (think YouTube, but with more genitals) to take down infringing videos. One company has apparently gotten tired of this game of Whac-A-Mole and gotten a court order that could lead to legal threats against thousands of people who uploaded videos to one popular tube site. [More]
Twitter Fights Trump Administration’s Attempt To Reveal Identity Of Critical ‘Alt’ Immigration Services Account
By 4.6.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
EPA Taken To Court For Ignoring Its Own Science In Deciding To Not Ban Pesticide
By 4.6.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
When Scott Pruitt recently took over as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, one of his first decisions was to deny a petition seeking a ban on a controversial pesticide — only months after scientists of the agency said it poses a significant health risk. Now the EPA is being taken to court for its decision to ignore its own recommendation. [More]
Jewelry Store Worker Ordered To Pay $34.5K For Posting Fake Yelp Review Of Rival
By 4.6.17
While it might be tempting to trash a competing business online, faking a Yelp review can be costly, as one Massachusetts jewelry store employee recently found out. [More]
Apple Accused Of Bricking iPhones That Had Been Repaired By Third Parties
By 4.6.17
Having your cracked iPhone screen repaired by someone other than Apple is pretty common. But Australia’s consumer protection regulator says Apple used software updates that rendered the devices useless, and then refused to fix these phones because they had been repaired by third party repair services. [More]
When Does The Extra Space In Your Potato Chip Bag Go From Annoying To Deceptive?
By 4.5.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
If you have two bags of potato chips with the same size packaging, containing the same weight of potato-based snacks, does it matter if one of those bags also contains more empty space? It does to two customers who have accused Wise of misleading shoppers by selling bags of snacks with lots of air. [More]
Passenger Sues Uber After Other UberPOOL Passenger Cuts Her Face With Knife
By 4.5.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
UberPOOL lets you shave a bit of money off your ride by sharing the car with other passengers headed in the same direction. As with any situation involving strangers put together in a confined space, there exists the possibility of everything from awkward silence to romance to violence. The question is: Should Uber be held responsible when an UberPOOL ride goes horribly, horribly wrong? [More]
Mars Inc. Lawsuit Claims Consumers Might Confuse Chocolates For Supplements Brand
By 4.5.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
My, what a difference a few letters can make: Mars Inc. — maker of candy bars, chewing gum, and dog food — is suing Wisconsin chocolate company CocoVaa, claiming its brand could “confuse and deceive” consumers into thinking it is related to CocoaVia, a line of cocoa extract supplements and snacks produced by Mars. [More]
EpiPen Maker Mylan Accused Of Raising Price To Pay “Kickbacks” To Pharmacy Benefit Managers
By 4.4.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
The EpiPen emergency allergy treatment was pushed into the spotlight last year over concerns about its skyrocketing price and the lack of any real competition for a product that had been around for decades. A new federal lawsuit alleges that Mylan — the company that acquired EpiPen ten years ago — raised its prices in order to provide bigger kickbacks to the companies that help determine which drugs your insurer will and won’t cover. [More]
Proposed Bill Would End Warrantless Searches Of Cellphones At U.S. Borders
By 4.4.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
More than 225 years ago, the First U.S. Congress carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s search warrant requirement, allowing for warrantless searches at the border. Until recently, this was limited to the people and their physical items, but federal agents can now search your phones and computers to look at photos, read emails, watch videos — all without having to demonstrate probable cause. A new piece of bipartisan legislation hopes to close that loophole, at least for U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens. [More]
