| Volume 122 Number 9 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
Under a new law, you may not be charged a fee to pay your credit card bill by phone or Internet, and issuers may not set arbitrary cutoff times for receipt of payments. Fees may not be charged for payments received by the due date -- or the next business day, if the bank doesn't accept mailed payments on the due date. Click here for more.
Visa Upgrades Chip Card Software to Speed up Checkout Times
Visa is upgrading its software to process chip-embedded credit and debit cards to function faster. The technology involved is not exclusive to Visa and could also be adopted by MasterCard and American Express. Chip cards have been used for years in Europe and many other parts of the world, making the U.S. a relatively late adopter. Analysts say that's the main reason that roughly half of all global credit card fraud occurs in the U.S Click here for more.
Your Money
If you still have the “it’ll never happen to me” perspective on fraud, here’s a stat that might persuade you to change your view: ATM card skimming incidents increased 546% from 2014 to 2015. There’s not much you can do to guarantee you won’t ever fall victim to ATM skimming, other than not using ATMs, but there are ways you can manage the damage fraud causes and minimize your risk of becoming a victim in the first place. Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
In regards to the FDCPA, the statute of limitations begins to run upon the date of the violation, not when the violation is discovered. The defendant law firm filed a collection suit in March 2008 against the plaintiff on behalf of defendant lenders. Service was attempted at plaintiff Rotkiske’s prior address and accepted by an unrelated third party. The lawsuit was dismissed shortly thereafter, but was refiled in January of 2009. The defendant again attempted to serve Rotkiske at the same address, and again service was accepted by an unknown person. The defendants obtained a default judgment against Rotkiske in the second collection suit. Six years later, Rotkiske filed suit against the collection law firm, asserting violations of the FDCPA and alleging that he did not discover the judgment until September 2014 when he applied for a mortgage. Rotkiske argues that the discovery rule required the court to calculate the statute of limitations from the date when the plaintiff knew or should have known of the violation. On the other hand, defendants moved to dismiss the FDCPA claims arguing that the action does not fall “within one year from the date on which the violation occurs” under the FDCPA. The Eastern District of Pennsylvania looked at the express language of the FDCPA and agreed with the defendants. The Court also added that it can be difficult to verify when a consumer discovers the violation while it is much easier to determine when the violation actually occurred. Rotkiske v. Klemm et al., (E.D.P.A. March 14, 2016) Click here for more.