Golden 1 Credit Union (Sacramento, CA) has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit that it improperly imposed overdraft fees even when members had enough money in their checking account to cover the transaction. The time period covered by the settlement is between April 2, 2009 and April 30, 2015.
Plaintiff Isabel Manwaring filed the overdraft fee class action lawsuit, alleging she was improperly charged the courtesy pay overdraft fees. She alleged it was improper for Golden 1 to charge courtesy pay overdraft fees when there was a positive ledger balance in her checking account that was enough to cover the transaction even though she had a negative available balance on her account.
Further, Manwaring alleges Golden 1 used a process to enroll members on the relevant dates in its overdraft program, which violated federal regulations that require affirmative consent to enrolling in an overdraft program. Her overdraft fee class action lawsuit asserted claims for violations of the California Unfair Competition Law, Breach of Contract, Negligent Misrepresentation, Unjust Enrichment, and Money Had and Received.
Golden 1 denies the allegations but agreed to settle the credit union overdraft fee class action lawsuit to avoid the expense and uncertainty associated with ongoing litigation.
According to the settlement agreement, Golden 1 set aside $5 million to address class members' claims.
Golden 1 is also guilty of falsifying employees timecards which resulted in employees not being paid for worked performed and discriminating against employees with disabilities.
ReplyDeleteSince this case settled, Golden1 has gone back to their old practice of transactional reordering with a vengeance. Also, as of today's date, I have not received any notification of payment from the settlement.
ReplyDeleteAt least the official website should keep us posted, but there has been nothing. And the attorneys offices have no idea why the checks haven't been mailed.
ReplyDeleteI have emailed them and only been told they were mailed out from 3/22 to 5/5. However Have now seen anything.
ReplyDeleteWhat is not reported is that Golden 1 stated that they were only guilty of not providing clarification on the process of charging over draft fees on accounts with positive balances. They said we will included in some fine print but we are not breaking any laws so we are going to continue this practice.
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