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Months after a weeks-long outage spurred by a ransomware attack this summer, Patelco Credit Union is continuing to face aftershocks from the incident in the form of multiple lawsuits in federal court, one of which could go to trial in 2027.
In a complaint filed on Sept. 30, Contra Costa County residents Mae Aquino and Donte Brown Jr. allege that they incurred $14,373 in fraudulent charges that put their account $10,000 in the red in early July at a time when they could not access their account due to the online banking outage following the ransomware attack on June 29.
According to attorneys from the Southern California-based Loker Law office, Patelco ignored the latter fact and others in proceeding to determine that the charges were not fraudulent, and that the plaintiffs are liable for them. They allege in the complaint that the charges consisted of 26 different transactions via Apple Cash, that the plaintiffs had never used Apple Cash for that account previously, and that nonetheless Patelco ultimately upheld the charges as valid at the conclusion of the dispute process.
“Defendant knowingly and willfully concluded that Plaintiffs’ account was not in error when such conclusion could not reasonably have been drawn from the evidence available to Defendant at the time of its investigation,” attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote
A trial date of Jan. 4, 2027 was set for the case, with status conferences due every 60 days until then, the first of which is scheduled for Jan. 16.
However, a handful of other federal cases filed against Patelco in the aftermath of the data breach are not currently moving forward. This includes two class action lawsuits filed in early July that allege the credit union failed to take proper measures to protect their customers’ private data and banking information despite knowledge of the data breach and the risks posed for its customers.
There were six total class action cases which were all voluntarily dismissed by the end of July, with no class action lawsuit related to the breach currently active in federal court.
Another case filed weeks ahead of the data breach on June 10 has been referred to an alternative dispute resolution process. The suit also alleges that Patelco violated the Electronic Funds Transfer Act by failing to take action on fraudulent charges and holding the customer – also represented by Loker Law – liable for $10,000 in charges they say they did not authorize.
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