Jacksonville Personal Injury Blog

You purchase a new car and just as added peace of mind, you also purchase something called credit life insurance to pay off the loan if you die before the life of the loan. It is protection against the risk of defaulting. There is also credit disability insurance to pay a loan off if you become disabled and cannot work.

Farah & Farah’s consumer lawyers want you to know that several class action lawsuits have been filed and some settled on behalf of consumers who purchased this type of insurance and paid off their auto loans early but did not get an “unearned premium” refund. Because the entire premium for the loan is paid up-front in a single premium, if the loan is paid off early, there is no longer any loan left to insure. That consumer then is owed a portion of the up-front premium.

In some cases, the consumer may have paid the loan and purchased or traded in one car for another car later to find the credit life or credit disability policy did not exist on the new vehicle loan.

You may have rights and not know it. Contact Farah & Farah if you paid one of these up-front premiums and never heard another word after paying off your loan early. Thousands of these certificates of insurance have been purchased, representing a financial boom to the insurers. Remember- the return of these funds is mandatory.

In many cases forming a “class” simply makes more sense because it allows an individual plaintiff access to a remedy through the courts in a way that would not make financial sense as an individual.

Source: http://cfbfirm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/2.14.11-Order-Granting-Preliminary-Approval-of-Settlement.pdf; http://www.ins.state.ny.us/ogco2003/rg031114.htm

You may not be aware they you have willingly signed an arbitration agreement hidden in many contracts. Arbitration agreements mandate if you have a dispute with a company, whether it is a nursing home, a bank account, a cell phone company, a rental agency etc. you will submit to an independent arbitration board that will decide your case and not a jury. They are called binding mandatory arbitration clauses. A company involved in wrongdoing does not want to open its documents to your attorney as required in preparation for trial so companies often push for arbitration agreements in contracts.

On Wednesday, April 27, the U.S. Supreme Court in AT&T v. Concepcion granted a request by AT&T to use fine print of contracts to bar consumers from joining a class-action lawsuit. Consumers can be forced into arbitration and barred from holding a company accountable for misdeeds, greed, fraud, or reckless behavior. A class action lawsuit allows people to band together to obtain justice in a courtroom in a way they would never be able to afford as an individual. Now a company that defrauds a large number of customers is insulated from liability. Public Citizen has been working with members of Congress to end forced arbitration.

Under mandatory arbitration agreements, there is no right to appeal and nothing will ever be uncovered about the misdeeds of those who wrote the contract. Mandatory arbitration slants the favor to the side of business. As Public Citizen found when it looked at data from National Arbitration Forum, in California cases, 94 percent of arbitrators ruled in favor of the business that hired them.

The attorneys at the Farah & Farah law firm believes losing your right to go to court puts the consumer on the losing end of any dispute. As an informed consumer read carefully any contract and inform the business you will not sign an arbitration agreement.

Consumers thought they were getting a free trial of a dietary supplement or teeth whitening product, but instead, they found additional charges on their credit card for more products they didn’t order. Those consumers are getting $3 million in refunds, reports the online magazine Consumer Affairs, after the company, XM Brands agreed to settle deceptive marketing charges filed by the Florida Attorney General’s Economic Crimes Division.

The Hollywood, Florida-based company has received 1,143 complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau of Southeast Florida and the Caribbean. Consumer complain they gave their credit card only to pay for shipping and instead they were subjected to the “negative option” marketing that requires them to cancel after a specific period of time or else they will be enrolled in a membership program with automatic shipments and charges for additional products.

There is also some concern about the safety and efficacy of the products sold, as some complain the products have made them sick.

Consumers have until April 29, 2011 to file a claim with the Florida Attorney General’s Office. Additionally, the AG's office will receive $51,000 from the company to cover the cost of attorneys’ fees and of an investigation, and XM promises to advertise in a way that does not defraud the consumer but lays out the terms and conditions of automatic renewals and shipments.

Florida law says a manufacturer is liable for a consumer’s injury if the product is unreasonably dangerous, or fails to perform as safely as a consumer would expect, or when the risk of danger in the design outweighs the benefits.

Though this is a consumer fraud case, if a consumer is injured by one of the XM Brand products, under Florida’s product liability law, the manufacturers, sellers, distributors, and designers can all be held liable for a defective product. Let Farah & Farah’s Florida product liability attorneys help you navigate the complex area of product liability and defective product law if you have been injured by a dangerous or defective product.