NBA wrongfully sues an Australian woman for $200,000 / News - Basketnews.com

Hackers completed more than 230 online transactions trading illegal goods through a woman's account. The NBA and Adidas sued Sarah Luke for damages and won the cases without her knowing about it for a total amount of $1.2 million.

Credit: REUTERS/Aly Song Credit REUTERS/Aly Song

The NBA won a lawsuit against an Australian woman without her even knowing about it. She's now trying to push back against it.

Sarah Luke was a victim of Australian insurance company Medibank's data breach. Soon thereafter, hackers took control of her PayPal account and made hundreds of fraudulent transactions. Two giant companies sued Luke for it and won.

The total damages amount to US$1.2 million. The NBA was awarded $200,000 in the District Court of Illinois while Adidas garnered a much larger sum - $1 million - in the US District Court of Florida, ABC News Australia report.

Luke's PayPal email was changed without her consent in December 2022. Even though she managed to regain control of her account in several days, the damage had already been done. From December 6 to December 8, the hackers successfully made over 230 transactions trading for illegal goods through the woman's account.

Both the NBA and Adidas were able to run the cases ex parte, i.e. without the defendant or the plaintiff being present in court.

Luke is now trying to prove her truth but the effort hasn't been very successful so far with multiple local governmental agencies and law enforcement entities denying her help due to it being an international case.

The woman has since filed a complaint to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority against PayPal for negligence.

It's currently unclear whether the two companies will pursue collecting the awarded damage as such cases are often a preventive measure to show that the corporations take similar matters seriously, ABC News Australia note.

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