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Parties have reached a settlement in a consolidated Yapstone data breach class action lawsuit.
Plaintiffs Jonathan Koles, Christopher Bonnema, Daniel Adams, James Mitchell and Robert McGuire submitted their motion for preliminary settlement approval to the court on Jan. 20. The settlement would require Yapstone to provide Class Members with payments and services worth close to $4.9 million.
Defendant Yapstone Inc. is the online payment processing service for the vacation and short-term rental website VRBO and its subsidiary HomeAway.
Trouble came to light in September 2015, when
Yapstone announced that a breach of its data systems may have exposed the personally identifiable information of its users between July 15, 2014 and Aug. 5, 2015.
Plaintiff Koles of New Jersey responded by filing his own Yapstone class action lawsuit. Koles alleged Yapstone failed to protect user data, then failed to provide users with adequate notice of the breach.
Koles’ action was later consolidated with another lawsuit filed separately by plaintiffs in California.
Yapstone moved for dismissal in April 2016. The company tried to downplay the sensitivity of the exposed information, arguing that the email and bank account information exposed in the breach was not truly “personally identifiable information.”
Settlement negotiations stretched out over a period of more than seven months. The parties went through several rounds of arms-length negotiations, informal discovery and mediation with the assistance of a retired judge.
Under terms of the Yapstone data breach class action settlement, more than 30,000 Yapstone customers who did not enroll in protection services in response to Yapstone’s original incident notice will be eligible to receive 12 additional months of ProtectMyID identity-protection services from Experian.
Testimony by plaintiffs’ expert values these services at nearly $4.9 million in the first year and almost $4.4 million per year after that.
Cash payments under the settlement will consist of a total of $120,000 to be remitted to data security nonprofits Public Justice and the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity at the UC Berkeley School of Information.
On top of that contribution, Yapstone will also add payments to the settlement fund to cover attorneys’ fees, costs of settlement administration and court-approved service awards of no more than $2,000 to each Class Representative.
The Yapstone data breach class action settlement also requires Yapstone to undergo extensive improvements of its data security measures.
If certified by the court, the proposed settlement Class will encompass all persons to whom Yapstone sent an incident notice following discovery of the alleged data breach. The parties estimate the number of Class Members at 182,500.
Top Class Actions will post updates to this class action settlement as they become available. For the latest updates, keep checking TopClassActions.com or sign up for our free newsletter. You can also receive notifications when this article is updated by using your free Top Class Actions account and clicking the “Follow Article” button at the top of the post.
Plaintiffs’ counsel includes attorneys Tina Wolfson, Robert Ahdoot, Theodore W. Maya and Bradley K. King of Ahdoot & Wolfson PC, Michael A. Galpern, Andrew P. Bell and James A. Barry of Locks Law Firm LLC, Shannon L. Hopkins, Shane Rowley, Nancy A. Kulesa and Andrea Clisura of Levi & Korsinsky LLP, and John H. Donboli and J.L. Sean Slattery of Del Mar Law Group LLP.
The Yapstone Data Breach Class Action Settlement is In re: Yapstone Data Breach, Case No. 4:15-cv-04429, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
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7 thoughts onYapstone Will Pay $4.9M to Settle VRBO Data Breach Class Action
Same thing to me as to user Jesus Mario Carlo Guerrero. Yapstone sent in my case my 4000€ payout to a different user, by their mistake, and they admitted it in writing.
YAPSTONE is a fraudulent company with poor technology. They mix up all clients informations, they do not screen credit cards properly. they have been condemned to pay 5M dollars as a result of a class action against their manipulations of sensible users data. They sent 5000$ belonging to my company, to somebody else and now after 2 months of fighting, they do not do anything to resolve this problem. Scammers!! What can I do? How to sue them? Can I participate to any class action?
add me. Their refund policy is crap. Jerk you around.
Top Class Actions will let our viewers know as soon as a settlement website becomes available.
I have a listing in VRBO and had the two first guests under new format about online payments
I have been homeaway client since 4 years ago with no problems.
VRBO forced us to work with online reservations and payments.
We did everything Yapstone asked for. Copy of a void check copy of our passports proof of property etc…
After 4 months arrived the first guests under that new format and !!!!bingo!!!!! We can’t collect our money saying our application was not finished. Then we received second guest in the middle an also the same thing. Nobody fix anything.
VRBO closes their eyes and don’t do anything to help us.
My lose is 5 thousand USD and they declined my application after I tried to collect my money. Then after that silence…..3 calls to a number provided by VRBO and three hours after no one said anything.
Emails to addresses provided by VRBO and nothing.
I will pull out my listing and will stay with Airbnb but want to fight for my money. This is a big scam from VRBO together with Yapstone. Why????? VRBO is not solidary with us.
My name is Christine McCall in West Lake Hills, Tx. 78746
I’ve been a host with VRBO since August 2014 to the present.
Is my information or individuals and guests who viewed my listing compromised.
If so, what should I do?
Please respond,
Thank You
Christine McCall
Hello I have been with VRBO since almost 4 years now and I am in process to fight my third chargeback. I never won with yapstones no matter how much I comply.
If some people would like to join so we can put action against them. I am not that good at typing my stories online but am willing to ACT.
+1416 898 9334
Canada
Eddy
I believe that VRBO/HomeAway should be held liable as they are FORCING us to use a company that is known to be the worst in the business. VRBO/HA claims to be a “advertising site” in their terms and conditions and indemnify themselves from any liability, yet they force us to use these “theives” and then offer no support when Yapstone blatantly allows/encourages the use of stolen/fraudulent cards by not doing ANY Due Diligence.
These people are criminals and should be punished. VRBO/HA should be held accountable for forcing us to use Yapstone with full knowledge of their failure to protect users personal information, failure to make any attempt to confirm the validity of the credit card that they process, failure to provide any recourse to the people that pay their outrageous fees (VRBO/HA owners).
I would join a class action suit in a heartbeat.