April

"The principal owners doing business as ""Jefferson High School Online"" and ""Enterprise High School Online,"" are permanently banned from marketing and selling academic degrees under settlements with the Federal Trade Commission. Defendants led consumers to believe that those who passed their online multiple-choice exam and paid between $200 and $300 could obtain legitimate high school diplomas. U.S. district court judge signed a temporary restraining order to halt the deceptive practices and freeze the assets of the defendants. The orders also impose a judgment of more than $11.1 million against the defendants and the corporate entity.
The FTC is also seeking separate default judgments with similar prohibitions against two additional businesses operated by the defendants:
http:||www.ftc.gov|system|files|documents|cases|150129jeffersonhsmotion.pdf?utm_source=govdelivery."

"Forty percent of the consumer class actions filed in Virginia in 2014 alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (""FCRA"") relate to background reports for employment purposes. With one exception, all of the cases are against consumer reporting agencies. The exception is a lawsuit against an employer. Every one of the employment-related cases seeks certification of one or more nationwide classes that could include thousands of consumers.
These allegations accuse consumer reporting agencies of either failing to have, or not following, the correct procedures under the FCRA in the following three areas:
1. what to disclose to consumers when a consumer report is furnished to an employer,
2. scrubbing outdated information from the consumer reports, and
3. providing the entire consumer file in response to a consumer's request.
FCRA Class Actions focus on technical violations and seek to recover statutory and punitive damages for the class members.
All but one of these cases filed in 2014 were filed by the same law firm."

"A second class action lawsuit alleging improper background checks on job applicants was filed in federal court in Texas against the retail craft supply chain Michaels Stores Inc. The plaintiff argues that Michaels violated the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by burying notice that the company would obtain a credit report in the job application. ""Defendant's FCRA disclosure and authorization are embedded within an online employment application which appears as one long continuous Web page that applicants fill out, and which contains a liability release, among reams of other extraneous information,"" the Michaels class action lawsuit alleges.
The Texas Michaels Background Check Class Action Lawsuit is Castro v. Michaels Stores Inc., Case No. 3:15-cv-00276, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas."