News today that West Coast Bank reached an agreement with the FDIC relating to its “courtesy coverage” overdraft protection. According to Brent Hunsberger’s report in The Oregonian, the issue was ineffective opt outs. But there is a bigger problem with Oregon banks ordering transactions in a way that triggers… Continue Reading →
Oregon readers know about our gasoline rules. In Oregon, there is no self-service. So when you pull up to the pump and ask the attendant to gas it up, you commit to the purchase the minute the gas starts flowing into your tank. ARCO does not take credit cards. Consumers… Continue Reading →
For those tracking this case, two updates worth noting. 1. As noted recently, Western Culinary/LCB Portland and Career Education Corp filed a motion to compel arbitration and to dismiss this case. More info on that motion here. The hearing date on the motion has been changed to October 7,… Continue Reading →
This is an update on our culinary school consumer fraud class action against Western Culinary Institute, now known as Le Cordon Bleu Portland, and its parent corporation, Career Education Corporation. A few weeks ago, defendants filed a motion to compel arbitration of Nathan Surrett and Jennifer Adams’ claims and to… Continue Reading →
Late yesterday, Career Education Corp and Western Culinary Institute/Le Cordon Bleu Portland filed a motion to compel arbitration in our consumer fraud class action. More on the case here. Short version is that three years after we filed the case, after the trial court certified a class action, after… Continue Reading →
We finally moved to the next phase in our Oregon consumer fraud class action against Western Culinary Institute/Le Cordon Bleu Portland and its parent, Career Education Corporation. Class notice went out last week. It took longer than expected because of a few unanticipated changes in the class brought… Continue Reading →
Here is the link to a recent NPR story regarding culinary schools and the disconnect between culinary careers and the costs of culinary school. Interesting quote from the of Career Education Corp. executive Kirk Bachmann about the calculations of placement rates. He notes that CEC schools do not include… Continue Reading →
The Government Accounting Office released its report today, GAO Report For Profit Colleges (pdf), highlighting a number of abuses by for-profit trade schools. The GAO engaged in undercover testing to ferret out the fraud and abuse in for-profit admissions and lending. Pretty scary stuff. The GAO Report notes that… Continue Reading →
For those of us in the trenches representing consumers in class actions, it’s always nice to find good information resources in the law blog world. I’ve stopped by the Complex Litigator a few times. I only caught this post on a consumer class against Wells Fargo because… Continue Reading →
Recently, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Richard Baldwin signed this order (pdf) certifying an Oregon consumer fraud class action against Western Culinary Institute and Career Education Corp. It took us a while to get to an order. That’s not unusual in class action cases. There is a quiet feature… Continue Reading →