| Volume 144 Number 4 |
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
Scammers follow the headlines. They take advantage of what’s happening in the news to find new ways to get people to part with their money. During the COVID pandemic, cleaning supplies have been in high demand, but often in short supply. Scammers see that as opportunity knocking. Click here for more.
Platform used by Hotels.com and Expedia leaks data of ‘millions’ of guests
The hotel reservation firm Prestige Software has exposed the data of millions of guests worldwide, Website Planet reports.
Prestige Software -- a platform that enables hotels to automate their availability on booking websites like Expedia and Booking.com -- reportedly stored files dating as far back as 2013 without any protection in place.
Exposed information included names, credit card details, ID numbers, and reservation details. In some cases, logs contained personally identifiable information for multiple members included in a single booking. Click here for more.
Your Money
For the millions of Americans who have filed for unemployment in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, state and federal moratoriums on evictions meant they didn't have to worry about landing on the street. However, those eviction moratoriums have been lifted, reinstated or changed in different ways across the U.S., and many tenants who haven't been paying rent could be facing an eviction notice soon. The eviction moratorium instituted in September by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for people who can't pay rent due to the COVID-19 pandemic is set to expire at the end of the year, and it doesn't apply as a sweeping moratorium for all renters. With many states rolling back other protections and with limited resources for rental assistance that helps tenants and landlords, the state of rental housing is at risk. Click here for more.
For the Lawyers
Dunning letter stating zero balance for interest not misleading under FDCPA. Plaintiff Joseph Degroot defaulted on a credit card debt, which was subsequently placed with a collection agency. The agency sent the plaintiff a collection letter stating that “interest and fees are no longer being added to your account,” which the plaintiff took to mean that the account had been charged off. The debt was then placed with a second agency, which sent the plaintiff its own collection letter that included an itemized breakdown of the debt, as follows: Balance Due at Charge-Off: $425.86 Interest: $0.00 Other Charges: $0.00 Payments Made: $0.00 Current Balance: $425.86 The district court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss, finding that the second letter had accurately and correctly disclosed the amount of the debt, and that letter did not imply fees or interest would be added to the debt in the future. The court also noted that even if the letter did imply that fees and interest would begin to accrue at a later date if the debt remained outstanding, the statement was not false or misleading given that state law provided for the assessment of fees and interest on “static” debts in certain circumstances. Degroot v. Client Services, 7TH Cir 2020 Click here for more.