Officials have targeted online payday loans as being exceptionally risky. The Federal Trade Commission sued 500FastCash, one such site, for allegedly adding hidden fees and using unethical means to threaten their borrowers into repaying their loans.

With some online payday loan sites, you can get a loan approved quickly – even directly deposited into your account – by providing your bank account information. In addition to sending sensitive information over a potentially insecure connection, you are giving a company control of your finances. According to Jean Ann Fox, consumer protection advocate and director of financial services for the Consumer Federation of America, this creates a dangerous situation.

“The hazard here is that you grant lender access to your bank account and you don’t know how much you will pay back by the time you are done,” Fox said. “Many [lenders] require you to manually set it up to make a principle payment.

If the borrower does not adjust the billing options manually, Fox warned, he or she is only paying off interest payments, not the principle amount borrowed.

To protect your finances, use extreme caution when taking out high-interest loans like payday loans. Taking out a traditional loan might involve a little more time and red tape, but in the end might be worth it.

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The suit dates back to 2004 when RealNetworks released music software called Harmony. Previously, iPod users could only sync music in their iTunes library to their iPod, but Harmony allowed users to sync music obtained through their own network. Apple discovered what RealNetworks was doing with Harmony, labeled the activity as “hacking” and released a software update that prevented users from syncing their Apple devices with RealNetworks media. Subsequent iPods carried this same software update.

In the aftermath, iPod owners sued Apple for unfairly blocking competition. The case stalled for several years until U.S. District Court Judge James Ware noted that neither side of the case had introduced an expert report. He noted that Apple would have the chance to challenge said report, and he asked for both parties to come together and agree on a schedule for further proceedings.

If you bought a standard iPod, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle or iPod Touch, you are already involved in the class action lawsuit, according to the lawsuit’s website (ipodlawsuit.com). If you want to exclude yourself from the lawsuit, you must send a letter of exclusion to the following address by July 30, 20102.

Apple iPod iTunes Antitrust Litigation

c/o Rust Consulting, Inc.

P.O. Box 8038

Faribault, MN 55021-9438

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One such target is CheckSmart, a payday lender owned by Community Choice Financial, Inc. The lender is allegedly skirting payday loan laws by offering bank cards that function in a similar way.

Payday loans came under fire due to high annual interest rates. Lenders market payday loans as short-term loans to help get the lender through a rough period between paychecks. The interest rates are very high: when calculated at a yearly level, they climb to about 400 percent APR, often much higher.

In response, Ohio and Arizona passed legislation that caps payday loans at 28 and 26 percent, respectively. Since the APR adjustment, CheckSmart is selling prepaid bank cards instead of payday loans in Ohio.

“Prepaid cards and payday loans just don’t mix,” said Lauren Saunders, managing attorney of the National Consumer Law Center. “Prepaid cards should be a safe alternative to bank accounts, not vehicles for evading state law with predatory loans that trap people, often those with the least means, in a spiral of debt.”

The bank cards offered by CheckSmart in Ohio allow users to directly deposit wages or benefits onto the card. They can also enroll in “overdraft protection” which works similar to a payday loan: the borrower can get a $100 advance from their next paycheck for a $14 fee and 35.9 percent interest rate. Compare this to a typical payday loan: a borrower can take out a $100 loan for a $15 or $20 fee and face equally high interest rates.

While the bank cards are technically not payday loans, they can easily trap consumers in a web of debt and high interest payments. They can be useful when getting out of a quick jam, but use extreme caution if you plan to use them more than once.

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The act specifies that gift cards cannot charge dormancy fees that accrue after the card is not used. The chain denies any wrongdoing, saying that they never charged dormancy fees or treated a gift card as expired.

If the settlement is approved, any New Jersey resident who purchased a Five Guys gift card on or after April 4, 2006 with a dormancy fee is entitled to another Five Guys gift card worth up to $50. To receive a piece of the Five Guys gift card class action lawsuit settlement, you must issue a claim no later than May 29, 2012.

A federal consumer protection law passed in 2009 prohibits companies from selling gift cards with expiration dates within five years. The law also prohibits most cases of inactivity fees.

A supplemental Florida gift card law allows for certain instances of smaller expiration date windows, such as charitable contributions or if said gift card is part of a gift package at a resort, convention, etc.

Have you ever been charged inactivity fees for not using a gift card in time, or issued a gift card that was set to expire in less than five years?

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Athena Hohenberg filed the suit when she realized that Nutella, which she had been feeding her child, was not as healthy as she thought. She claims the product’s ads and labels make Nutella seem healthier than it really is.

The product’s label states: “An example of a tasty yet balanced breakfast: a glass of skim milk, orange juice and Nutella on whole wheat bread.” The lawsuit said this label is misleading because it does not mention that the nutrition comes mostly from the other foods listed, and because it omits the high levels of saturated fat and processed sugar contained in Nutella.

“Plaintiff purchased Nutella reasonably believing, based on Defendant’s representations and omissions, that, indeed, Nutella was a nutritious complement to a balanced breakfast, i.e. was itself nutritious and balanced, which it is not,” reads the class action complaint.

One ad, which has since been pulled, featured a hectic household at breakfast time. The mom says that she uses Nutella as a topping for breakfast foods like “multi-grain toast and even whole wheat waffles” for her kids.

“It’s a quick and easy way to give my family a breakfast they’ll want to eat,” the woman says.

The ad claims that Nutella is made with “simple, quality ingredients like hazelnuts, skim milk and a hint of cocoa.”

Were you misled into thinking Nutella was a healthy option? You can receive a piece of the Nutella class action settlement if:

• You purchased Nutella as a consumer in California between August 1,2009 and January 23, 2012
• You purchased Nutella as a consumer in any state beside California between January 1, 2008 and February 3, 2012.

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Our plaintiff, Dawn Morris Willis, has undergone a series of horrors at the hands of Florida law officials. It started when Willis was pulled over for suspicion of drunk driving. The officer on duty, Deputy Tommie Joe Brock, said he would not arrest her if she agreed to have sex with him. She agreed, but the unlawful coercion did not end there. Deputy Brock continued to rape and batter Willis over a period of eight months.

For the first half of the eight–month period, Brock raped Willis 10-15 times while she was serving as a confidential informant for ongoing investigations. Serving as a CI and submitting to Brock sexually was in exchange for lesser sentencing for Willis, as well as favorable treatment for her husband, who was incarcerated at the time.

The second half occurred while Willis was detained at the county jail. Brock repeatedly arranged for her to be transported to his office so he could rape her. During one of these visits, Willis’s father was in poor health. Brock said she could call him if she performed oral sex on Brock. Witnesses reported seeing Willis crying as she was escorted back to her cell.

Willis reported Brock’s behavior to the police, who did nothing. She then reported it to the FBI, and the FBI agent determined that Willis’s testimony was credible and true. DNA evidence, as well as a confirmed call from Brock’s office to Willis’s father’s nursing home, supports her case. Video surveillance shows her being transported from the jail to Brock’s office.

Like our work with consumer protection and class action lawsuits, we are proud to stand up for an individual who has been wronged by an establishment. Brock was terminated following Ms. Willis’s FBI testimony, but he deserves more for what he did to our client.

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The Bachelor lawsuit is not the first high profile class action suit to feature racial discrimination:

• Denny’s

Denny’s paid a $54 million settlement in 1995. The chain was sued for denying service, providing lesser service or charging extra fees to African-American customers. Some were asked to pay in advance. After paying the settlement, Denny’s created a racial sensitivity program for employees and featured more diverse actors in its commercials.

• Abercrombie & Fitch

A 2004 lawsuit accused the clothing retailer of hiring a predominately white workforce for sales and modeling positions while placing minorities in less visible roles. Abercrombie & Fitch agreed to pay a $40 million settlement, hire up to 25 diversity recruiters, hire a vice president of diversity and create more racially diverse marketing materials.

• U.S. Department of Agriculture

A group of 400 African-American farmers – representing thousands more – sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture for racial discrimination in 1999. The suit claims that African-American farmers were denied farm loans due to their race. The case gained notoriety when a group of senators, including then-Senator Barack Obama, lifted certain requirements to allow more farmers to join as plaintiffs in 2008. One email claimed that the $1.25 billion settlement was slated to go to 86,000 African-American farmers when only 39,697 existed during the years specified in the suit. The government explained that a farm can be in the names of multiple people and the census forms had multiple, misleading titles for those who work on a farm. The submission for claims to receive part of the settlement ends on May 11, 2012.

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Robert Jahoda has filed class action lawsuits against 10 separate banks because they do not have adequate instructions for blind people, including voice guidance and instructions in Braille.

Banks were supposed to update their ATMs to be fully accessible by blind people by March 15. Jahoda, who is blind, and a driver visited several ATMs after that deadline passed and found that many had not implemented the necessary adjustments.

According to the suits, the machines are “inaccessible because they use computer screen text prompts that are undetectable to blind people to guide consumers through banking transactions. These computer screen text prompts are not translated into a medium accessible to the blind, such as audio output.”

The first lawsuit was filed on March 26, 11 days after the deadline for making the adjustments had passed. The new regulations, formed in part by bankers, were approved in September 2010.

Two of the banks, PNC and Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania, say that they are already complying with the standards. The others say that they are currently working on making the adjustments.

Banks have a responsibility to make their facilities accessible to everyone. Considering that they had a year and a half to implement these new features, there is no reason not to have these measures in place.

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Some employers, like supermarket chain Publix, used the fluctuating workweek or “Chinese Overtime” payment system. In this system, employers pay employees the same rate every week regardless of hours worked, except for overtime. When overtime kicks in, the rate drops to half the hourly rate.

The fluctuating workweek payment schedule is legal as long as certain conditions are met. The former general managers suing Publix argues that that system of payment was not appropriate for their position. They filed a class action lawsuit against the supermarket chain for lost wages under this system and for not properly calculating bonuses into the managers’ overtime.

Overtime payment is at the heart of another class action lawsuit, this one involving sales representatives from the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. The sales reps allege that they deserve overtime for working an extra 10 to 20 hours a week, but the company says that sales positions are exempt from overtime due to the Fair Labor Standards Act. Unlike most sales representatives, however, pharmaceutical salespeople do not receive a commission when they make a sale. The case, currently under review by the Supreme Court, will have a ruling by June 30, 2012.

Other methods used by employers to skirt overtime included forcing workers to work off the clock and misclassifying fulltime employees as tax-free independent contractors.

Times are tough and money is tight for several businesses, but that is no excuse for treating employees unfairly. The recent influx of unpaid overtime lawsuits will continue until employers properly classify and compensate their employees.

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• Full name is not required

You may have noticed a trend among your Facebook friends recently: a middle name or initial removed, a last name changed to a middle name or a completely fake name where a familiar moniker used to be. This is not just a unique form of self-expression – it is a form of consumer protection. This way, advertisers and potential employers will not know too much about them, and strangers cannot find them.

• Do not list an address or phone number

Unless you want your identity stolen, do not include personal information like an address or phone number on a public profile.

• Allow selective access

Plenty of Facebook quizzes seem like innocent fun, but keep in mind what you are agreeing to when you click the “Allow Access” button. A study by the University of Virginia revealed that 90 of the most popular 150 Facebook apps access parts of your profile it does not need in order to run. The app developer could be a scammer in disguise, and you just gave him or her permission to view your info and make posts on your behalf.

Use caution when using social media sites. While they can be fun, too much information about yourself plays right into the hands of those looking to take advantage of the platform.

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