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Predatory lending, in the form of abusive subprime mortgage loans, payday loans, tax refund loans, and other lending scams, strips $16 billion from low-income consumers and communities in the U.S. each year. A $5+ million judgment has been entered against investment bank Lehman Brothers, Inc. and subsidiary Lehman Commercial Paper, Inc. in a class action filed on behalf of all persons who acquired mortgage loans from First Alliance Corporation from May 1, 1996, through March 31, 2000, that were underwritten by Lehman Commercial Paper. The money will not be distributed until all possible appeals have been exhausted.

A federal class action has been filed against the Kentucky based Trover Clinic Foundation and its associated network of hospitals and medical officers. The suit alleges that over 415 individuals who sued Trover Clinic in state court were subsequently contacted and told that they would not be treated at any Trover affiliated facility unless they accepted the terms of a settlement offer put forward by Trover. Many of the plaintiffs are cancer patients who would have been forced to seek treatment out of state as a result of Trover's refusal to treat them.

The parties have reached a settlement apparently valued at $6.5 million in a 38-state action filed against Ford Motor Credit Corporation on behalf of Ford and Lincoln Mercury “Red Carpet” lease customers who allege that the company overcharged them for early lease termination fees between 1991 and 1995. Persons eligible to take part in the settlement should contact the settlement claims administrator for more information.

Hundreds of thousands of former BankBoston customers have yet to claim $25 payments they are entitled to under a $12.5 million class-action settlement with Bank of America. Court documents indicate only about 58,000 account holders have filed claims so far, or less than 10 percent of the total. The precise size of the class is unknown, but it is estimated to be 584,000 to 1 million account holders.

A national class action has been filed in Kansas against mortgage broker giant, Money Tree Mortgage, Inc. The action is brought on behalf of all U.S. residents who have applied for mortgages through Money Tree and alleges that the company has committed a litany of common law and federal violations from fraud, conversion and negligent misrepresentation to wire fraud, racketeering and violations of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The action seeks compensatory, statutory and punitive damages as well as injunctive and declaratory relief.

Auditing firms that don’t report accounting errors are in trouble these days. A class action has been filed against law firm Ernst & Young, LLP, on behalf of NextCard, Inc. shareholders who purchased NextCard securities between April 19, 2000, and October 30, 2001. The shareholders allege that the law firm, acting as NextCard’s auditor, actively participated in a scheme to defraud them in violation of federal securities laws.