Some Arco patrons to get checks
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, July 24, 2019
- An Arco gas station in 2015.(Ryan Brennecke / The Bulletin, file)
Checks are due to begin arriving Monday for 1.7 million Oregon customers overcharged by Arco gas stations and am/pm convenience stores, which tacked on a 35-cent debit card fee to purchases without appropriate notice.
A Multnomah County jury ruled in January 2014 that the retail chains had overcharged customers, and a judge ordered their parent company, BP, to pay $409 million.
Oregon customers who filed claim forms will receive their payments in two installments.
A $91.94 check will be issued this month and another of roughly the same size a year from now. Millions of additional dollars will go to nonprofits that provide legal services and consumer advocacy for Oregonians.
The attorneys who brought the case will receive $65 million, some of which came from the judgment and some of which was paid directly by BP. But millions of additional dollars were left over because hundreds of thousands of Oregonians didn’t file claim forms by the deadline.
That’s common in class-action cases, often times because people didn’t know about the judgment or couldn’t be located for notification. In past cases, such leftover funds went back to the defendants. But a 2015 Oregon law changed that and rerouted the money from such judgments to the state’s consumers.
“This new law prevents these funds from being returned to the wrongdoing multinational corporation,” said Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, who pushed for the new law. “ Instead, they will remain here and do more general good for consumers in Oregon.”
The gas station case will provide $36 million in two installments to Legal Aid Services of Oregon, which provides legal help to low-income residents and is entitled to half of the unclaimed funds under the 2015 law.
The judge overseeing the case used another $36 million in unclaimed charges to create another nonprofit, now called Oregon Consumer Justice, dedicated to consumer education and protection.
The new organization says it will seek to educate consumers about their rights and legal protections and will work to assert and expand those rights through litigation and legislation.