| Volume 116 Number 10 |
Subscribe to the Newsletter
Forward this news alert to your family and friends
Helpful Links
Texas Consumer Complaint Center
Credit Reports and Identity Theft
Your Guide to Small Claims Court
Contact Us
1-713-743-2168
The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
You may have already received a new "chip" card from your bank or credit card company. Because of the roll-out of this new technology, scammers are calling or emailing consumers telling them that they have to "update" their personal information before the new chip card can be sent, and then using that information to steal consumers identities. Since your card issuer already has your information, they don't need an "update" before they send you the new cards. This link has good information on how to spot the scams. Click here for more.
Toyota Recalls 6.5 Million Vehicles Worldwide for Window Switches
Toyota announced a recall of some of its most popular vehicles, with model years ranging from 2007 to 2011. The company said the power window switches in those vehicles "may have been manufactured with insufficient lubricant grease," which could short-circuit, overheat and melt, causing a fire. About 2 million U.S vehicles are affected by the recall, including the 2009 to 2011 Corolla, Matrix, Sequoia, Tundra and Scion xB, the 2008 to 2011 Highlander and Highlander Hybrid, 2006 to 2011 RAV4, 2006 to 2010 Yaris and 2009-10 Scion xD. Previously the 2007 and 2009 Camry and Camry Hybrid had recalls for this issue. Click here for more.
Your Money
It seems that the battle for your holiday shopping dollars is heating up. Best Buy has announced free shipping on all orders starting this Sunday and lasting through the season until January 2. Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Google Library's digitization of books for search purposes is "fair use" and not a copyright violation. The Second Circuit ruled that Google’s project to digitize and index millions of copyrighted books without permission from the copyright owners is a non-infringing fair use because it was “transformative” in that it makes available significant information about books, permits a searcher to identify books that contain a word or term of interest, allows readers to learn the frequency with which selected words were used in books throughout different historical periods, and enables researchers to find books of interest. Critical to the court's decision was the fact that the Google search would only reveal "snippets" of the copyrighted text to show context, and not the entire text. The Authors Guild, et. al. v. Google, Inc. (2nd Cir 2015) Click here for more.