DUBLIN – A dozen different cases against Patelco Credit Union have been consolidated in Alameda County Superior Court following the huge ransomware attack on the corporate earlier this yr.
According to the court, a dozen plaintiffs are suing the Dublin-based company for negligence, breach of contract and bad faith, violations of the California Consumer Privacy Act and other damages attributable to “the massive and avoidable cyberattack” the credit union suffered this summer had documents.
Patelco first announced the attack in an email and web post to customers on June 29, while also locking customers out of their online bank accounts. This prohibited anyone, even Patelco's cashiers and administrators, from checking customer balances, sending or receiving online payments, and even logging into their online accounts.
Throughout the two-week ordeal, Patelco continued to post updates on a dedicated website to notify customers of service updates, comparable to when online payments were available via Zelle and PayPal. The credit union announced in late July that it had “stabilized” its network after the lockout ended on July 15.
The 12 customers suing the credit union include Anand Chaudhry, Jamie Wallace, Joshua Warren, Carl Cordell, Austin Lawhead, Bradley Tanzman, Darren Van Antwerp, Darrel Adams, Wily Lee, Siobhan Gallagher, Sean McGinity and Daniel Corona, based on reports Court documents show. Records show Cordell's case known as a bellwether case.
In mid-July, the courts began consolidating the twelve cases in August. The group's lead attorneys, Scott Edward Cole and Alicyn B. Whitley of Oakland-based Cole & Van Note, wrote in court filings that the ransomware attack could have affected over one million people. Patelco says it serves over half one million customers and has over $9 billion in assets under management.
Patelco reported losses of $39 million to the National Credit Union Association within the third quarter of this fiscal yr, based on a report in Credit Union Times, a trade publication.
Rina Johnson, a Patelco spokeswoman, confirmed to this news organization that the losses were caused primarily “by overdrafts on members' accounts during the system outage.”
“For the period ending September 30, 2024, we have established sufficient reserves for all expected losses related to the security incident,” Johnson said in a press release to the Bay Area News Group this week. However, the end result may persist for an extended time period and should be different than expected.”
Johnson also confirmed that “Patelco has not paid the ransom.” When asked to elaborate on the scale of the ransom demand, Johnson declined to comment further.
A case management conference on the consolidated cases is scheduled for Jan. 28 in Alameda County Court, records show. No trial date has been set.
The credit union can be being sued in federal court by a half-dozen other plaintiffs over the attack.
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