| Volume 142 Number 43 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
You’ve gotten the calls: from Social Security. Or the IRS. Or Medicare. Or any number of other agencies. Except: as soon as the caller threatens you or demands that you pay them with a gift card or by wiring money, you know. It’s a scam. Even if caller ID tells you otherwise – that’s not the government calling. Click here for more.
Airlines are starting to show some new consumer love
In an era where the only thing airlines don’t charge passengers for is a visit to the bathroom, one airline has decided to add a little retro-style customer comfort to its persona. Delta Air Lines has announced that, starting November 2019, it will greet Main Cabin passengers on its international flights with “Welcome Aboard” cocktails, then follow up with hot towel service and mix-and-match appetizer options and larger entrees. Now, mind you, one pro-consumer change doesn’t guarantee an industry-wide shift, but more airlines are starting to make little changes that give the traveler more reasons to look forward to flying. Click here for more.
Your Money
If you're scrambling to manage debt and struggling to make minimum payments, you're in trouble. But it doesn't necessarily mean you're on the road to bankruptcy. You might be a good candidate for a debt management plan with a credit counseling agency. A debt management plan can be negotiated between the agency and creditors to pay off your debt. It can take three to five years to complete a plan, will cost money to enroll and could negatively affect your credit score in the short term. But in the end, you should be free of credit card debt. Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Split over FACTA continues. The D.C. Circuit has found that a printed receipt containing all 16 digits of a customer's credit card number is an "egregious" enough violation of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act to confer standing, further deepening a circuit split over the Supreme Court's Spokeo standard. A three-judge panel reversed a lower court's ruling last year that found consumer Doris Jeffries didn't have Article III standing to sue under FACTA because she'd noticed right away that her receipt had too much financial information printed on it and held onto it rather than throwing it away. The lower court said even though Centerplate had technically violated FACTA, which prohibits vendors from printing more than the last five digits of a credit card number on their customers' receipts, Jeffries hadn't suffered any harm because she'd pocketed the receipt and thus kept it from potential fraudsters' prying eyes. In its ruling, however, the panel said a "FACTA violation as egregious as the one committed by Centerplate" confers standing simply because the receipt in question drastically increased Jeffries' risk of falling victim to identity theft. Jeffries et al. v. Volume Services America Inc. d/b/a Centerplate/NBSE et al., case number 18-7139, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Click here for more.