Washington State

Office of the Attorney General

Attorney General

Bob Ferguson

SEATTLE — A King County Superior Court Commissioner ordered an Auburn property management company to pay a total of half a million dollars in restitution for impacted Washingtonians and financial penalties. The company’s owner hijacked the homes of people who hired his company by adding new walls and rooms without the owners’ knowledge or consent and refusing to pay homeowners.
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that Christopher Lischewski, formerly the CEO of Bumble Bee brand tuna, will pay $100,000 to Washington for his role in a canned tuna price-fixing scheme that artificially inflated the price of tuna from the three largest national brands: Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea and StarKist.
OLYMPIA — Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s fifth annual Data Breach Report, released today, showed that the number of Washingtonians affected by breaches nearly doubled in the last year and ransomware attacks tripled.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today secured a court order against Health Insurance Team, a Seattle-based insurance company, for imitating the official state-run health insurance exchange. Ferguson’s complaint, filed today along with the order, asserts that Health Insurance Team’s marketing violated the Consumer Protection Act’s prohibition on deceptive advertising.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today filed a consumer protection lawsuit against e-cigarette company JUUL. Ferguson’s lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court, asserts JUUL violated the state Consumer Protection Act by designing and marketing its products to appeal to underage consumers and deceiving consumers about the addictiveness of its product. JUUL’s unlawful conduct fueled a pervasive and staggering rise in e-cigarette use and nicotine addiction among youth.
A King County Superior Court judge today ordered Vancouver, Wash.-based air duct cleaning companies and their owner to pay civil penalties of $10 million in Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s lawsuit over deceptive advertisements and robocalls. By law these penalties will be directed to the state’s general fund. The companies made over 13 million robocalls within Washington state from 2017 to 2019, including calling more than 500 individual Washington consumers over 100 times.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that automaker Honda must change its corporate practices as a result of an investigation by state attorneys general into Honda’s use of defective, dangerous airbags made by Takata, a now-defunct manufacturer that worked closely with Honda.
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced he is leading a coalition of states that will file a lawsuit today in federal court in Washington state challenging drastic operational changes at the U.S. Postal Service that threaten critical mail delivery and could undermine the national election in November. The Postal Service cuts, including eliminating staff overtime, halting outgoing mail processing at state distribution centers and removing critical mail sorting equipment, threaten the timely delivery of mail to millions of Americans who rely on the Postal Service for everything from medical prescriptions to ballots.
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit today against an Orange County-based company that marketed vapor products containing nicotine in a way that appealed to youth, then sold the products without verifying the buyers’ ages. The company, E-Juice Vapors, failed to comply with numerous age verification requirements intended to prevent youth from purchasing vapor products online. Moreover, E-Juice Vapors never received a license from the state to deliver vapor products into Washington as required by Washington law.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that, as a result of his office’s multiyear investigation into online travel agency Rocketmiles, Washington consumers can now file claims to receive their share of a $300,000 recovery. From May 1, 2015 to December 5, 2016, the company charged hidden fees on thousands of transactions in Washington, even though they told consumers they charged the same rate as booking directly with a hotel or a competing travel agency.

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