Household HSBC Watch

This is the Household - HSBC Watch year end update on H&R Block, Household International, and HSBC tax refund loans. Racketeering charges against HSBC and H&R Block still remain, mostly in part to HSBC’s predatory lending subsidiary formerly named Household International.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Kanawha Circuit judge gave preliminary approval Friday to a $62.5 million settlement between H and R Block Inc. and an estimated 8 million consumers in more than two dozen states who exchanged tax refunds for upfront payments.

The deal resolves four class-action lawsuits as well as potential claims alleging the nation’s largest tax preparer violated state consumer protection laws.

The company offered quick payments, formerly known as “Rapid Refunds,” to customers expecting tax refunds. They were actually loans repaid by those refunds that included interest rates of between 29 percent and 750 percent.

While admitting no wrongdoing, H and R Block has agreed to offer payments to customers who took out these refund anticipation loans. Depending on their state, consumers are eligible for payments for loans taken out as far back as mid-June 1989.

The settlement does not resolve all the cases filed over the company’s refund anticipation loans. A Pennsylvania lawsuit remains pending, and H and R Block faces a March trial in a federal class-action in Illinois that alleges it violated racketeering laws.