On September 29, 2017, the Texas Attorney General (Texas AG) announced that it reached settlement in the form of an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance with a lead generation company that directed business to a debt relief company that the Texas AG sued in 2013 for providing fraudulent and illegal debt-relief services. The…
On September 28, 2017, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (USAO) announced it entered a $3.6 million settlement agreement with a Utah Bank and its affiliated payment processor to settle allegations that the bank and its processor committed fraud by illegally debiting money for specific telemarketing and Internet marketing merchants (Merchants). The USAO’s settlement is the…
On September 28, 2017, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (USAO), along with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and HUD’s Office of the Inspector General (HUD-OIG), announced that they had reached a settlement with a national mortgage lender over alleged…
On September 27, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that it had entered into a $760,000 settlement with two affiliated auto finance companies stemming from allegations that the companies violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (“SCRA”), 50 U.S.C. § 3901, et seq., by failing to obtain court orders prior to repossessing vehicles owned…
On September 27, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered into a consent order with a real estate settlement services provider for allegedly steering consumers to an affiliated title insurer without disclosing the relationship, an alleged violation of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), 12 U.S.C. 2607, and…
On September 18, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced that it had entered into a settlement and proposed consent judgment with a student loan owner and securitizer, and a separate consent judgment with the securitizer’s debt collector. The securitizer has a loan portfolio of approximately 800,000 student loans. According…
On September 19, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced a simultaneous complaint and proposed consent order with a loan brokerage company and two associated individuals (the “Defendants”). The Defendants are alleged to have made misrepresentations concerning the brokerage and the loan terms they offered to potential borrowers. According to the CFPB,…
On September 26, 2017, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (AG) announced that she sued a Massachusetts used car dealership for allegedly using predatory practices to sell poor quality cars with high cost loans. The AG’s lawsuit asserts that the dealership violated the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act, G.L. c. 93A, § 4, by…
On September 25, 2017, New York’s Department of Financial Services (DFS) announced that it had entered into a consent order with a payday loan servicer and debt collector over the servicing and collection practices on usurious payday loan debts, resulting in nearly $12 million in relief for affected consumers. Payday loans are illegal in New York, and…
On September 25, 2017, New York’s Financial Services Superintendent announced that the Department of Financial Services (DFS) had entered into a consent order with a payday loan debt collector and a payday loan servicer that serviced and collected on payday loans made to New York consumers that were illegal in New…
On September 12, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and the Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade conducted a joint hearing titled, “Examining the Relationship Between Prudential Regulation and Monetary Policy at the Federal Reserve.” A link to the videotaped testimony…
On September 22, 2017, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (AG) announced a settlement with a company to resolve claims that the company used abusive and illegal debt collection practices. The AG’s complaint alleges that the company added hidden, illegal, and unauthorized late fees and charges to consumers’ accounts—including a $25 late…
The issue of cybersecurity is back in front of Congress in the wake of the news of the data breach at Equifax Inc., which reportedly has affected approximately 143 million consumers. Various industry trade groups, including the National Retail Federation, wrote a letter to Congress to advocate a sweeping uniform…
On September 18, 2017, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that it had entered into a $907,000 settlement with an auto loan lender and servicer (“Defendant”). In its complaint, filed the same day in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, the DOJ alleged that the Defendant had…
On September 14, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued an opinion and order against two former mortgage companies and their former president and CEO. The order, which followed a previous jury verdict against the company, awarded the Government nearly $280 million in treble damages under the False Claims Act (FCA), approximately $13 million…
On September 14, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System announced the execution of a settlement with a state bank concerning alleged violations of the National Flood Insurance Act (“NFIA”), 42 U.S.C. § 4012a(f)(4). The Board of Governors asserted that where a pattern or practice of violations of NFIA…
On September 13, 2017, Virginia Attorney General (“Virginia AG”) Mark R. Herring announced that it had filed suit in Virginia state court against an open-end credit plan lender for allegedly violating the Virginia Consumer Protection Act (“VCPA”), Virginia Code §§ 59.1-196 to 59.1-207, through its lending practices. The defendant lender allegedly made illegal, unlicensed loans at…
On September 8, a federal judge in California ordered a national mortgage services company to pay a $7.9 million civil penalty based on false or misleading marketing statements it allegedly made to consumers about its mortgage loan repayment services. The court, however, denied the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (“CFPB”) request for $74 million in restitution, finding that the…
In the second quarter of 2017, Consumer Enforcement Watch tracked 40 enforcement actions taken against consumer financial service providers. This represents a marginal decrease from the 46 enforcement actions taken against consumer financial service providers that we tracked last quarter, and from the 46 enforcement actions tracked in the second…
On August 23, 2017, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published guidance on filings required by national banks and federal savings associations (collectively referred to here as “banks”) pertaining to “substantial asset changes.” The guidance lists various events that are considered substantial asset changes for which banks must…