On January 12, 2017, the Florida Attorney General’s Office (Florida AG) announced that it and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation (Florida OFR) had entered into coordinated settlements with an online payday lender and its affiliated entities. The payday lender was accused of charging interest rates prohibited by Florida law. This…
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 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,…
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 3, 2016, the Georgia Attorney General’s Office (Georgia AG) announced that affiliated online payday lenders will suspend collections on approximately $6.5 million in loans following a Georgia Supreme Court ruling that state law applied to the online payday lenders. As a result of that ruling, the Georgia AG’s case currently…
For the second quarter of 2016, Consumer Enforcement Watch tracked 46 enforcement actions taken against consumer finance providers. This represents a slight decrease from the 50 enforcement actions that were tracked last quarter, and a decrease from the 56 actions that we tracked in the second quarter of 2015. Approximately two-thirds of…
On October 14, 2016, the Indiana Attorney General’s Office (Indiana AG) announced that it had reached a settlement with an online payday lender. The Indiana AG alleged that the lender employed a “rent-a-tribe” scheme in which it allegedly associated itself with a Native American tribe in order to bypass the Indian Deceptive…
For the first quarter of 2016, Consumer Finance Enforcement Watch tracked 50 enforcement actions taken against consumer finance providers, marking a slight increase from the 46 actions we had tracked a year ago in Q1 2015. Of the Q1 2016 enforcement actions, the majority were settlement agreements. Consistent with the…
On April 25, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced it entered into two settlements, available here and here, with a law firm and a financial services company over allegations the entities filed debt collection lawsuits without properly verifying the underlying debt obligations, in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act…
On March 16, 2016, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office announced that two financial services companies specializing in auto loans agreed to pay a total of $7.4 million in restitution to Massachusetts consumers over allegations the companies charged excessive interest rates on auto loans. According to the Massachusetts AG, the companies purchased loans from primary creditors…
On November 20, 2015, the CFPB published its current rulemaking agenda. Under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, the CFPB drafts and implements new regulations governing certain consumer finance products and services. The CFPB publishes its regulatory agenda twice a year, which summarizes the proposed regulations (or “rules”) the Bureau is…
On November 5, 2015 the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office announced that a national auto loan company agreed to pay $5.4 million in restitution to Massachusetts consumers to settle allegations it charged excessive interest rates on automobile loans. According to the Massachusetts AG, the company purchased loans from primary creditors that contained…
On November 2, 2015, the California Attorney General’s Office announced that it had entered into a $100 million stipulated judgment with a national bank over allegations that the bank engaged in abusive debt collection practices, in violation of California’s Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The allegations relate to the bank’s…
For the second quarter of 2015, Consumer Finance Enforcement Watch tracked 56 enforcement actions taken against consumer finance providers, a slight uptick in enforcement activity from the previous quarter’s 46 actions. Although the 56 actions ranged from court-enforcement consent settlement agreements, administrative settlements, administrative actions, civil judgments, and new civil…
On August 19, 2015, the New York Attorney General’s Office announced an interim agreement with a subsidiary of a national banking organization over allegations that the bank charged improper fees on customer’s inactive accounts. The bank managed consumer investment accounts and charged a variety of fees for account management services….
On June 9, 2015, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced that it provided its 2014 Annual Financial Acts Enforcement Report (the “Report”) to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) and the Federal Reserve Board. The 23-page Report, dated May 29, 2015, provided information about enforcement and related activities involving Regulation Z (Truth in…
For the first quarter of 2015, Consumer Finance Enforcement Watch tracked 46 instances of enforcement activity taken against a consumer finance service provider. Not surprisingly, the year started off slow with only 9 enforcement actions taken in January, likely due to agencies wrapping-up actions before year-end 2014. The 46 actions ranged…