Capital One Class Action

On August 7, 2019 LawtonCates filed a lawsuit that will seek class action status to obtain protection and remedies for Wisconsin consumers affected by the Capital One data breach. The suit alleges that Capital One violated the Wisconsin Consumer Act when it failed to provide adequate protection for personal private information submitted by people who applied for credit cards with Capital One.In a statement released on July 29, 2019, Capital One acknowledged that information for 100,000,000 or more applicants had been accessed without authorization. Capital One has acknowledged that the data breach had occurred in March and April, 2019, and that approximately 140,000 Social Security numbers, and 80,000 bank account numbers, were obtained by a hacker, along with other personal private information belonging to Capital One applicants and customers. LawtonCates’ suit seeks remedies for Wisconsin citizens who may have been affected, including a court order requiring Capital One to immediately provide information to customers detailing what information was accessed and whether that information has been further disseminated. The suit also seeks to require Capital One to provide immediate protection to affected customers via credit monitoring and identity theft insurance, where appropriate. The Wisconsin Consumer Act was enacted in 1973, and according to the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions is “widely regarded as the most comprehensive law of its type in the nation.” (See https://www.wdfi.org/wca/consumer_credit/what_is_wca.htm.) The Act requires companies to observe reasonable commercial standards of fair dealing when dealing with Wisconsin residents who apply for or obtain credit from those companies. LawtonCates’ consumer protection lawyers have extensive experience in litigating on behalf of Wisconsin residents.