| Volume 93 Number 7 |
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Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!
We'll return with new editions of the Consumer News Alert in January 2014.
The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
As a general rule an employer may not require an employee to take a lie detector test. The employee may be required to submit to a test, however, if the employer is investigating a theft and has a reasonable suspicion that the employee may have been involved.
For more general information about the law, check out my website.
Click here for more.
Target Breach Exposes Credit Accounts
If you shopped at Target anytime between November 27 and December 15, you could have a serious issue on your hands. Millions of credit and debt card names, account numbers, and security codes were stolen in one of the largest consumer security breaches this year. According to reports, the stolen credit card information has already hit the black market for anywhere between $20 and $100 per account.
Chase has been proactive in dealing with the issue, contacting consumers and keeping branches open in order to cancel and reissue cards. If consumers choose to keep their current debit account, they'll be limited to $300 in purchases and $100 in cash withdrawals.
Multiple class action lawsuits have already been filed against Target across several states.
Was your account information stolen during the massive Target security breach?
Click here for more.
Official Deadline for HeathCare.gov
In order to accommodate consumers still attempting to finalize their transactions on HealthCare.gov, federal authorities have extended the official deadline by a few hours. Although the official deadline was set for December 23, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has made accommodations to ensure heavy traffic and technical glitches don't prevent application completion and payment by extending time into Christmas Eve.
If consumers don't sign up in time, they won't be covered by the start of the year, and thus not in compliance with the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.
Have you completed your application? Make sure you paid your first premium, or you could have to start from scratch!
Click here for more.
Your Money
Are you better off refinancing?
Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Arbitration Agreements Cannot Restrict Grounds for Vacating Award
The Ninth Circuit held that parties cannot contractually restrict Section 10 of the FAA by providing for “binding, non-appealable arbitration.”
Relying on the Supreme Court opinion in Hall Street, the court found the statutory language in the FAA “carries no hint of flexibility.” And that allowing parties to opt out of Section 10 review “would also frustrate Congress’s attempt to ensure a minimum level of due process for parties to an arbitration.”
Click here for more.