T-Mobile’s failure to stop SIM-swap fraudsters from draining customers’ bank accounts “not only harms its subscribers, but it also harms the financial institutions of those subscribers,” said Michigan First Credit Union’s response Friday (docket 2:22-cv-13159) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan in Detroit to T-Mobile’s Jan. 16 motion to dismiss the credit union’s complaint (see 2301170004). Due to T-Mobile’s failures, “third parties are enabled to perform unauthorized transactions on the financial accounts of its subscribers,” it said. T-Mobile subscribers then challenge these unauthorized transactions with their banks and credit unions, and the financial institutions, when required by the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, replace the funds of the subscriber that were wrongfully transferred by the third party, it said: “The financial institutions are completely without fault in these circumstances but are nonetheless required to replace the funds.” Michigan First incurred damages of at least $7,641 last year due to unauthorized SIM swaps that victimized T-Mobile customers, it said.

Wednesday’s order of the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferring the 17 Samsung data breach class actions to the New Jersey District and consolidating them under U.S. District Judge Christine O’Hearn in Camden (see 2302020002) doesn’t take effect until the order is filed with the clerk in O’Hearn’s court, said a conditional transfer order signed Thursday (docket 3005) by John Nichols, clerk of the panel. The transmission of the order to the clerk in Camden is stayed under panel rules for seven days, through Feb. 9, it said. If any party files a notice of opposition with Nichols within the seven-day period, the stay will be continued until further order of the panel, it said.

U.S. District Judge John Walter for Central California in Los Angeles granted the motion of defendants Ring and Home Depot to compel plaintiff Alison White’s claims to arbitration, in a Jan. 25 order (docket 2:22-cv-06909). White, an attorney, alleges Ring and Home Depot misrepresented in their ads and marketing materials that Ring’s Jobsite Security 5-Piece Starter Kit, when properly configured, will contact the authorities automatically if a home's security system is breached (see 2212090048). She denied knowingly agreeing to terms and conditions that mandated that all disputes be resolved through arbitration rather than through the courts. But Walter concluded that the Ring terms of service were presented to White “as a fully enforceable modified clickwrap agreement,” and that by buying a Protect Pro subscription on Ring’s website and activating the monitoring settings via the Ring app on her smartphone, she “affirmatively accepted” Ring’s terms, including the arbitration agreement, said his order. Walter similarly concluded the terms and conditions of Home Depot’s Pro Xtra loyalty program through which White bought the Ring starter kit were presented to her “as a fully enforceable modified clickwrap agreement,” and she accepted those terms, including the arbitration agreement, his order said. Though White argues she wasn't aware of the arbitration agreements she signed up for, it’s “well established” in case law it’s of no consequence whether a consumer actually clicks a hyperlink to read the terms containing the arbitration provision, it said. Walter’s order stayed White’s litigation, pending the outcome of the arbitration.

Two separately filed but related cases against defendants LastPass or its parent company Go To Technologies are “appropriate” for consolidation, said an unopposed motion Friday in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in Boston. The two cases, Debt Cleanse Group Legal Services v. Go To Technologies (docket 1:22-cv-12047) and John Doe v. LastPass (docket 1:23-CV-10004), involve common parties and allege “similar facts and legal claims,” said the motion. Consolidation will also enable the court to conduct proceedings in one combined action, ensuring they're “adjudicated efficiently,” it said. If consolidation occurs, the plaintiffs ask the court to appoint Migliaccio & Rathod and Zimmerman Law Offices as interim co-lead class counsel in the combined action, it said. The putative class representatives in each class action seek to represent similar classes of persons who used LastPass services and “were similarly impacted" by the data breach that is the subject of the litigation, said the motion. The class actions “arise out of the same circumstances” -- the defendants’ alleged failure to safeguard the plaintiffs’ highly sensitive information, “which was compromised” as a result of the data breach at issue in the lawsuits, it said.

U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant for Eastern Texas in Sherman should dismiss with prejudice AT&T’s false-advertising complaint against T-Mobile’s BannedSeniors.com campaign for failure to state a claim, said T-Mobile’s answer Friday (docket 4:22-cv-00760). A week earlier, Mazzant denied AT&T’s application for a preliminary injunction to halt the campaign (see 2301190009). AT&T’s claims are barred by the doctrine of unclean hands, said T-Mobile. AT&T also “cannot establish that it has suffered any damages, and its purported damages, if any, are vague, uncertain, imaginary, and speculative,” it said. T-Mobile seeks the recovery of court costs, plus “such other and further relief” as the court deems “just and proper,” it said.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation granted leave to three plaintiffs in one of the more recent tag-along Samsung data breach class actions to file an interested party response in support of transferring their case with all the others to the Northern District of California, said a text-only clerk’s order Tuesday (case number 3005). Plaintiffs Matt Davis, Lakia Morton and Zachary Chernik filed their class action Jan. 18 in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta (docket 1:23-cv-00251). They think consolidating their case with all the others under U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco is “the most appropriate” option, said their Jan. 20 filing. Corley “has a manageable docket load,” she's already presiding over one related action, and she’s “an experienced judge who is well-suited to serve as a transferee judge,” they said. The judicial panel is scheduled Thursday for oral argument on the various transfer motions.

Two Georgia plaintiffs and one in Illinois filed notice of a potential tag-along action Thursday to the multistate Samsung customer data breach litigation (see 2301040035). Oral argument is scheduled for Thursday before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation’s hearing on various motions to consolidate the cases and transfer them to a single judge. Six lawyers entered notices of presentation by the Jan. 3 deadline to appear at the oral argument. In their Thursday complaint (docket 3055) filed at the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in Washington, plaintiffs Matt Davis and Lakia Morton of Georgia, and Zachary Chernik of Illinois, allege Samsung failed to properly secure and safeguard their sensitive and confidential personally identifiable information when an unauthorized third party stole customer data. The July data breach followed one in March, when an organization called Lapsus$ accessed and stole Samsung’s confidential data and published 190 gigabytes of it online.

Defendants Ring and Home Depot's motion to compel plaintiff Alison White’s dispute to arbitration or alternatively dismiss her second amended complaint is “appropriate” for a decision with oral argument, said a minute order Thursday (docket 2:22-cv-06909) from U.S. District Judge John Walter for Central California in Los Angeles. He vacated a hearing on the motion that had been set for Monday. White, a practicing attorney, alleges Ring and Home Depot misrepresented in their ads and marketing materials that Ring’s Jobsite Security 5-Piece Starter Kit, when properly configured, will contact the authorities automatically if a home's security system is breached (see 2212090048). The defendants deny any wrongdoing.

AT&T “took a blow” Wednesday when U.S. District Court Judge Amos Mazzant for Eastern Texas denied its application for a preliminary injunction to stop T-Mobile’s allegedly false BannedSeniors.com ad and marketing campaign (see 2301190009), emailed a T-Mobile spokesperson Friday. With Mazzant’s ruling, “seniors will now continue to have access to truthful information about 55+ wireless discounts,” he said. “AT&T's approach is unfair and confusing. We'll continue to bring attention to this injustice until AT&T finally does the right thing and offers a wireless plan for seniors in states not named Florida.”

The FTC opened a claims process for former AT&T customers who haven’t claimed a refund stemming from the agency's lawsuit against the carrier for misleading consumers about its unlimited data plans, it said Thursday. Former AT&T customers may be eligible to claim a refund from the $7 million remaining in a $60 million fund created to settle allegations that AT&T charged for unlimited data plans while throttling data speeds, said the agency, citing its 2019 order filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. The FTC’s complaint said AT&T failed to adequately disclose to unlimited data plan customers that if they reached a threshold of data use in a given billing cycle, it would reduce their data speeds to the point that many common mobile phone applications, such as web browsing and video streaming, “became difficult or nearly impossible to use.” As part of the settlement, AT&T is prohibited from making any representation about the speed or amount of its mobile data without disclosing “material restrictions on the speed or amount of data,” and the disclosures need to be “prominent, not buried in fine print or hidden behind hyperlinks.”