{"id":4628,"date":"2003-12-16T18:29:17","date_gmt":"2003-12-16T22:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2003\/12\/16\/consumer-names-kept-confident"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:35","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:35","slug":"consumer-names-kept-confidential-despite-lawyers-foia-ploy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/12\/16\/consumer-names-kept-confidential-despite-lawyers-foia-ploy\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumer Names Kept Confidential Despite Lawyers&#8217; FOIA Ploy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a390'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/ethicalesq\/PowerPlug.gif\" alt=\"power plug\" \/>&nbsp; The 7th Circuit decided today that the Federal Trade Commission does not have to give the names of consumers who have submitted complaints about &#8220;cramming&#8221; to lawyers who want potential clients for a class action suit.&nbsp;(<\/FONT><A href=\"http:\/\/caselaw.lp.findlaw.com\/data2\/circs\/7th\/031689p.pdf\"><FONT face=\"Arial\" color=\"#2d73b9\" size=\"2\">The Lakin Law Firm, P.C. v. Federal Trade Commission<\/FONT><\/A><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"> (12\/16\/03 USCA 7th Cir.)).&nbsp;&nbsp;(Thanks to Marcia Oddi at the <A href=\"http:\/\/www.marciaoddi.com\/indianalawblog\/mtarchives\/December%2016,%202003%2001:51%20PM.html\">Indiana Law Blog<\/A><\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">&nbsp;for the pointer;&nbsp;as usual, Marcia&nbsp;has ably summarized the decision.)<\/FONT><\/DIV><br \/>\n<DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/FONT>&nbsp;<\/DIV><br \/>\n<DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">Under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the FTC gave The Lakin Law Firm (of Wood River, Illinois) information on 1400 complaints of &#8220;cramming&#8221; &#8212; &#8220;the shady practice of putting bogus charges on a person&#x2019;s bill (usually a monthly credit card statement) in the hope that the consumer will pay the inflated balance without noticing that he has been duped&#8221; &#8212; but withheld&nbsp;names and addresses of the complainants.&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/FONT><\/DIV><br \/>\n<DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/FONT>&nbsp;<\/DIV><br \/>\n<DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">The Commission said:<\/FONT><\/DIV><br \/>\n<BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">&nbsp;&#x201C;[t]his information is exempt from <\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">release&nbsp; under FOIA Exemption 6, 5 U.S.C. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The 7th Circuit decided today that the Federal Trade Commission does not have to give the names of consumers who have submitted complaints about &#8220;cramming&#8221; to lawyers who want potential clients for a class action suit.&nbsp;(The Lakin Law Firm, P.C. v. Federal Trade Commission (12\/16\/03 USCA 7th Cir.)).&nbsp;&nbsp;(Thanks to Marcia Oddi at the Indiana [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1cE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14085,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4628\/revisions\/14085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}