Auto Insurance Company GEICO Pays Out Multi-Million Dollar Settlement
by Tom Vacar, Fox 2 (KTVU Oakland)
The Consumer Federation of California charges that GEICO tried to discourage less preferable customers. Those include those not college-educated, not professional, not executive, a woman, an unmarried person, or those not currently insured. They would not be offered those lowest legal minimum [rates]. Read More ›
Geico Pays $6M To Settle Insurance Discrimination Claim
by Kathleen Pender, San Francisco Chronicle
Geico will pay $6 million to settle a complaint alleging it illegally discriminated against women, unmarried people, blue-collar workers and those without four-year college degrees by showing them costlier auto insurance policies on its Web site than it showed other potential customers. “We believe the primary intent was to drive these folks away from Geico to someone else’s Web site or at least make sure they were paying a lot more money if they didn’t drive them away,” said Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America, the nonprofit advocacy group that filed the complaint. Read More ›
Geico Agrees To $6-Million Settlement In Discriminatory Pricing Case
by Nick Shively, Los Angeles Times
The agreement stems from a petition filed by the Consumer Federation of California asking the department to take action against the Chevy Chase, Md.-based insurer on the grounds that it was discriminating based on occupation, education level and other personal characteristics. The federation had tested Geico’s website and found the insurer misrepresented information for customers who were unmarried, unemployed or employed in a low-wage occupation, had not obtained a four-year college degree and had gaps in insurance coverage, according to the petition documents. Read More ›
GEICO Pays $6 Million To Settle Civil Rights, Deceptive Rate Quote Complaint
SACRAMENTO – GEICO agreed to pay $6 million dollars to settle the Consumer Federation of California (CFC) complaint alleging the insurance giant violated civil rights and insurance law by targeting low- and moderate-income women and unmarried motorists with deceptive and inflated automobile insurance rate quotes. The settlement … Read More ›
GEICO Pays $6 Million To Settle CFC Civil Rights, Deceptive Rate Quote Complaints
GEICO agreed to pay $6 million to settle a Consumer Federation of California complaint alleging the insurance giant violated civil rights and insurance laws by targeting low- and moderate-income women and unmarried motorists with deceptive and inflated automobile insurance rate quotes. “This is an important win for all California motorists,” said CFC Executive Director Richard Holober. “GEICO is paying a price for its unfair practices, and the settlement assures that all good drivers are treated equally, whether rich, poor, or in between. It sets a new industry standard for rate quotes that are accurate and transparent.” Read More ›
Uber Unleashes Lobbyists In California To Reshape Driver Rules
by Alison Vekshin, Bloomberg
Uber has spent almost a million dollars since 2013 on lobbyists in California. … Lyft, also based in San Francisco, has spent $362,000 on lobbying the legislature since 2013. … Some lawmakers say Uber is skirting rules that apply to similar businesses. “In California, we allow them to operate for free while we require many other businesses to pay for permits, franchising fees and licenses,” said Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, the sole vote against Low’s measure in May. “It’s beyond ridiculous what they’re getting away with.” Read More ›
Garnishing California’s Future: New Bill Seeks To Curb Wage Seizures
by Bill Raden, Capital & Main
Unable to keep up payments, loans fall into default and too often result in crippling court-ordered garnishments that claim up to a quarter of earnings. … “People’s lives are being ruined by these very high, 25 percent garnishments – the national maximum – being taken out of their check before they get it home,” [one expert said]. … [SB 501 would] eliminate the current law’s penalty against garnished workers who might want to work more than 40 hours a week. As the law stands now, every additional dollar above $360 a week is taken by the creditor. Read More ›
San Francisco District Attorney Says Uber Hires Killers, Rapists
by Vic Lee, ABC 7 News
Uber is facing serious allegations. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon says rapists, kidnappers, and killers are driving some people to their destinations. If the allegations against the company are true, it’s frightening to think about who you’re trusting behind the wheel with your life in their hands. Gascon and his counterpart in Los Angeles filed a civil complaint against Uber last December. That complaint said Uber was misleading passengers about its drivers’ backgrounds. This new document actually lists the criminal backgrounds of dozens of its drivers. Read More ›
For-Profit Colleges Recruit Vets For Cash
by Chris Kirkham and Alan Zarembo, Los Angeles Times
For-profit colleges have collected $8.2 billion from the latest GI Bill since it went into effect in 2009, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of government data. … That money for years helped prop up some of the industry’s most distressed institutions — including ITT Educational Services Inc. and bankrupt Corinthian Colleges Inc. … Together, ITT and Corinthian have collected more than $1 billion in GI Bill benefits since 2009, the Times analysis shows. That’s more than double the University of California, California State University, University of Texas and Arizona State University systems combined. Read More ›
Who Else Has Accessed Your Medical Data?
by Lisa Zamosky, Los Angeles Times
So far in 2015 alone, there have been more than 32 health data breaches as a result of hacking, according to the U.S. Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights. “Health records are more valuable to identity thieves than financial records, and they can actually be sold at a premium on the black market,” [says one expert]. … It’s a more complicated crime to resolve than financial theft, with fewer protections in place to help patients whose information is stolen. … Medical identity theft can also dangerously cause someone else’s health data to get intertwined with yours. Read More ›
AB 573: Students Abandoned By Closure Of Corinthian Colleges Turn To Legislature
AB 573 would give all 13,000 former Corinthian students access to legal, financial and academic counseling to help them deal with some of the obstacles they face, such as retrieving their Corinthian files and determining whether the students are eligible to have their federal education loans discharged. The bill would fund outreach efforts to identify eligible students, and it would facilitate and encourage the transfer of academic credits earned at Corinthian Colleges to the California Community Colleges system. Read More ›
AT&T Making It Even Harder For You To Protect Your Privacy
by David Lazarus, Los Angeles TImes
In completing his company’s $49-billion acquisition of DirecTV last month, AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said it was “all about giving customers more choices.” He meant entertainment and service choices, but he could just as easily have been referring to the myriad of decisions customers will encounter … Read More ›
State Consumer Advocate To Pull Out Of San Onofre Nuclear Plant Settlement
by Ivan Penn, Los Angeles Times
A multibillion-dollar settlement over the closed San Onofre nuclear power plant took another blow Monday as the state consumer advocate said that he was withdrawing from the deal and would urge regulators to reopen the case. Joe Como … said Monday that he was “very disappointed” by a judge’s ruling Aug. 5 that Edison failed to report communication with regulators about a settlement. Como added that the judge did not go far enough and wrote an opinion that still gives too much latitude for utilities to communicate with regulators outside public view. Read More ›