Plaid ‘Surprised’ At TD Bank’s Lawsuit Alleging It Tricked Consumers

Plaid is denying that it has used TD Bank‘s logo to dupe customers into sending information it could monetize, a report from The Globe and Mail says.

Plaid said it’s also disappointed that TD Bank has filed a lawsuit against it in the case, saying Plaid’s role in transactions is “made clear” to customers.

Plaid’s software includes helping popular apps like Venmo, Coinbase, Square and Stripe access bank and credit card info, and the company says they “have been working with TD for quite some time, and are disappointed that they resorted to litigation and false allegations.”

“Plaid is publicly known for never selling or renting consumers’ personal information,” the company said, according to The Globe and Mail.

Plaid faced a civil suit on Wednesday (Oct. 14) in a New Jersey court that accused the company of making a user interface for financial services applications that infringed on TD Bank’s logo, trademark and green color scheme.

In court, TD Bank said Plaid’s actions “tricked” customers into thinking they were entering personal information into the bank’s platform. Plaid, the allegations went, had worked to monetize the data. U.S. subsidiary president Greg Braca, according to The Globe and Mail, said in a statement that Plaid’s “intentional, unauthorized use of TD’s name and branding is deceptive.”

Plaid has seen a number of class action lawsuits accusing it of selling information obtained from logins from millions of customers, without the practice being disclosed. One of them, PYMNTS reports, said the California-based company has been engaging in such practices for years and has affected upwards of 200 million individual accounts.

While the company’s modus operandi states that it intends to power digital finance and FinTech issues from its own digital network, criticisms have come in over the years that the company has made a habit of taking the information for itself and selling or misusing it without that information being disclosed.