The office of Virginia’s attorney general and the Washington Commanders reached a $1.3 million settlement that returned hundreds of thousands of dollars in deposits to season ticket holders.
The team improperly withheld the return of the deposits under former owner Dan Snyder, Attorney General Jason Miyares announced Tuesday.
“I am pleased that we were able to reach a fair and reasonable agreement with the Washington Commanders that requires restitution of unlawfully retained security deposits to consumers,” Miyares said in a news release.
“Our investigation found that the Commanders’ prior ownership unlawfully retained security deposits for years after they should have been returned to consumers. I thank the team’s current ownership for cooperating with this investigation, and for working towards rectifying the consumer harm we identified.”
The Washington Commanders returned more than $600,000 to about 475 ticket holders and agreed to pay civil penalties of $600,000 and $100,000 in fees and costs to the attorney general’s office.
The team unlawfully kept “significant sums of security deposits” that should have been returned to season ticket holders when contracts expired, the attorney general’s office said. The practice had been going on since 1997, despite contractual obligations to return the money within 30 days.
Under the settlement terms, the team “will undertake efforts to refund all remaining security deposits on dormant accounts (former season ticket holders) to consumers or remit them to state unclaimed property departments,” the office said. Yearly reminders will be sent to ticket holders about their existing deposits, and the team will return deposits within 30 days of an expired contract.
The settlement has been filed in Loudoun County. The team reached previous settlements with DC and Maryland.
Feature image courtesy Washington Commanders
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