On February 8, 2016, the Honorable Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California signed an order appointing Locks Law Firm to the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee in the YapStone Data Breach Litigation. YapStone is a web and mobile platform-based payment processor which processes payments for companies such as Vacation Rental By Owner (www.vrbo.com) and Home Away (www.homeaway.com).
The Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee will be in charge of prosecuting claims on behalf of all individuals and entities whose personal identifying information and bank account information were accessible through an unsecured URL owned by YapStone.
Locks Law Firm’s co-counsel, Tina Wolfson of Ahdoot & Wolfson, PC, was appointed Interim Lead Counsel in the case. The appointed Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee consists of Locks Law Firm, LLC; Levi & Korsinsky, LLP and Ahdoot & Wolfson, P.C.
The claims in the case, which will be captioned In re YapStone Data Breach, arise out of YapStone’s loss of customers’ private personal information. YapStone processed payments for rent-through websites such as www.vrbo.com and www.homeaway.com. The breach of YapStone’s security and exposure of consumers’ personal information can be used by thieves to open financial accounts, take out loans in customers’ names, incur charges on existing accounts, and clone ATM, debit or credit cards. Consumers’ personal identifying information is regularly sold by criminals to be used by identity thieves around the world.
“Companies that fail to adequately secure the personal information of consumers must be held accountable to ensure that such companies will take steps to protect consumers from identity theft,” said Locks Law partner Michael A. Galpern.