On January 22, 2023, T-Mobile was sued in federal court in California alleging negligence, unjust enrichment, breach of express contract, breach of implied contract, and invasion of privacy over the recently-disclosed data breach of more than 37 million postpaid and prepaid customer records.
Big banks are teaming up to launch a digital wallet that people can use to shop online. Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and four other banks are working on a new product that will allow shoppers to pay at merchants’ online checkout with a wallet that will be linked to their debit and credit cards. The digital wallet will be managed by Early Warning Services, the bank-owned company that operates money-transfer service Zelle.
The Federal Communications Commission came out with sweeping actions on reported illegal robocalls Wednesday. The three separate actions involve PhoneBurner Inc., MV Realty PBC LLC and Twilio for calls related to mortgage servicing for homeowners that were identified as potentially illegal robocalls.
On January 12, the CFPB released a report that identified an uptick in identity theft reported by servicemembers. The report found that military consumers (defined as active duty servicemembers, veterans, and military family members) reported almost 50,000 cases of identity theft to the FTC in 2021. Additionally, military consumer complaints to the CFPB for debts resulting from identity theft increased from about 200 in 2014 to more than 1,000 in 2022.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently joined the Eleventh Circuit (and a growing majority of courts) in rejecting the “Hunstein theory” of liability under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). In Shields v. Professional Bureau of Collections of Maryland, Inc., the Tenth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of FDCPA claims for lack of standing, confirming that a debt collector’s use of an outside mail vendor does not constitute an actionable, concrete injury.