First American Title Insurance might have wrongfully charged consumers for certain fees during a home closing or refinancing.

Investigation and pending class action lawsuit against First American Title Insurance.

First American Title is one of the nation's largest title and escrow companies. The class action lawsuit alleges First American Title Insurance engaged in a series of schemes and deceptions designed to bilk customers out of millions of dollars. The class action lawsuit identifies four schemes created to bilk customers.

First, the class action complaint alleges First American engaged in a captive reconveyance scheme - charging customers fees for reconveyance when the reconveyance is actually done by the prior lender, a charge built into the payoff amount.

Second, the class action complaint also claims First American engaged in a retained interest scheme, pooling customer's loans and taking the profit from gained interest. First American Title failed to disclose this to customers, which is a violation of fiduciary duties, according to the claim.

Third, First American Title also engaged in an affiliate reconveyance scheme, steering customers to subsidiary businesses for reconveyance tracking then charging the customer three times the rate the affiliated company charges independents.

Fourth, the class action complaint also alleges that First American engaged in a wire fee scheme charging customers for the transfer of funds back and forth from the bank, when in reality the banks provided these for no fee or minimal cost to First American.

It is believed that First American engaged in these practices over the past five years and has illegally collected millions of dollars from consumers.