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Google Play Wins Lawsuit Over Hundreds of Unauthorized Bank Charges

Google Play Wins Lawsuit Over Hundreds of Unauthorized Bank Charges Google was sued by Susan Harvey, who alleged that when she purchased a video game through Google Play it required her to link her bank account electronically. As a result, she claimed she received hundreds of unauthorized charges on her bank account which totaled thousands of dollars. Google offered to refund the money to Harvey, but she refused to settle because Google failed to implement security features and, as a result, hackers obtained her private banking information in violation of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA).

The court examined the applicable statute of limitations under EFTA. The unauthorized bank account charges occurred April of 2013 through May of 2014. Harvey did not discover the prohibited charges until August of 2014 and filed the lawsuit April 15, 2015. Although there are few cases discussing the EFTA’s statute of limitations, the court determined that the time for the applicable statute of limitations began when the charges first started in 2013. As a result, Harvey was required to file her claims in April of 2014, so she was a year late in making her claims. Harvey’s legal team argued that each unauthorized charge to the bank account reset the clock, but the court rejected this argument.

Harvey also alleged that the statute of limitation period was tolled until she discovered the improper charges in August of 2014. However, the court rejected this argument reasoning that there were 1000 unauthorized charges. She had notice on her bank account statements and if she had exercised due diligence, she could have discovered them. She also could have seen the unauthorized charges by looking at her Google account.

To read the case in its entirety, please see Harvey v. Google , 2015 WL 9268125 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2015).

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