On January 23, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it entered into a consent order with a mortgage servicer, resolving allegations that the servicer violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) and the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA). The CFPB alleged that, during 2014, the servicer informed borrowers seeking loss mitigation…
On January 18, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania against a servicer of private and federal student loans, alleging that the servicer used deceptive practices related to borrower repayment. The student loan servicer is…
On January 19, 2017, the CFPB announced it filed a suit against a Minnesota bank, alleging the bank deceived consumers into purchasing overdraft services. The CFPB alleged that the bank, which operates throughout Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, Arizona, and South Dakota, made it seem mandatory to purchase overdraft protection…
On January 18, 2017, the Attorney General (AG) of Washington announced that it filed a lawsuit against the nation’s largest student loan servicer and related entities alleging deceptive lending, servicing, and debt collection practices. According the AG’s Complaint, filed in King County, Washington Superior Court, the servicer engaged in a…
On January 3, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California certified for appellate review its August 31, 2016 Order finding that a California-based payday lending company used a “rent-a-tribe” scheme to avoid state usury laws, in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA). Enforcement Watch covered the August 31,…
On January 9, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it entered into a consent order with two affiliated medical debt collection law firms over allegations that the law firms used deceptive collection letters and illegally notarized collection affidavits. The consent order alleges that the law firms would send debtors collection…
On January 3, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered into two consent orders, available here and here, with two national credit reporting agencies over allegations that the agencies violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act by misrepresenting how lenders use certain credit scores that the agencies…
On December 16, 2016, the fair lending team at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced the markets that it would closely monitor in 2017. These new monitoring priorities are part of the general priority goals announced by the CFPB in 2016, which included: 1) regulating the use of arbitration clauses; 2) addressing…
On December 20, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered into a consent order with a mid-Atlantic financing company over allegations that the company entered into revolving-credit agreements with consumers without providing adequate disclosures. The consent order alleged that the company violated the Electronic Fund Transfer Act…
On December 19, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had filed actions against four separate Virginia-based pawnbrokers for alleged violations of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA). The nearly identical Complaints allege that the pawnbrokers misled consumers by enticing them…
On December 16, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Moneytree, Inc., which offers payday loans and other financial services, entered into a consent order that requires Moneytree to pay approximately $255,000 in restitution to consumers and to pay an additional civil money penalty of $250,000. The consent order concerns the CFPB’s allegations that…
On December 2, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a status update regarding various initiatives that were proposed in its fall 2016 rulemaking agenda. The update provides readers with an overview of the CFPB’s proposals and observes that comments submitted in connection with a number of the proposals…
On December 7, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered into consent orders with three different reverse mortgage companies concerning alleged violations of the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) and Regulation N’s prohibitions on making material misrepresentations as to any “mortgage credit product.” The first consent order…
On November 28, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it issued a compliance bulletin warning regulated financial companies about the use of employee incentive programs in providing their financial products to consumers. The Bureau advised that these types of programs, if run unchecked or with excessive sales goals,…
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) recently-released Request for Information Regarding Consumer Access to Financial Records (RFI) suggests that the agency is considering making a new rule to set requirements and protections for the use of consumers’ financial information. In publishing the RFI, the CFPB notes that the Dodd-Frank Act “provides…
In the third quarter of 2016, Consumer Enforcement Watch tracked 37 enforcement actions taken against consumer financial service providers. This represents a decrease from the 46 enforcement actions that were tracked last quarter and the 50 actions that we tracked in Q1. 25 of the Q3 enforcement actions were settlements…
On November 21, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland against a structured settlement company and certain of the company’s principals, alleging that the company violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) by defrauding lead paint victims. According to the…
The results of the recent election have led to speculation regarding what legal changes are in store for the consumer financial services industry and the CFPB in particular. Although President-elect Trump and other Republicans have made statements regarding “dismantling” the Dodd-Frank Act, few concrete proposals have been put forward. In…
On November 10, 2016, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the owner of a debt collection company was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay $3.9 million in restitution to consumers. After a five day trial, the jury found that…
On November 3, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it filed suit against a Virginia pawnbroker, alleging that the pawnbroker violated the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) by failing to disclose an annual percentage rate (APR) on its closed-end pawn contracts. According…