On October 13, 2016, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida denied class certification in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) suit. In Newhart v. Quicken Loans Inc., Case No. 9:15-cv-81250, the plaintiff alleged that he received a number of calls on his cell phone from…
On October 31, the United States District Court for the Western District of New York granted the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) motion for summary judgment against a group of debt collectors, finding that the debt collectors violated the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA)….
On November 1, 2016, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (U.S. Attorney) announced that the owner, president, and chief executive officer of a debt collection company pleaded guilty to orchestrating a scheme to coerce thousands of consumers across the country into making debt payments through false threats and…
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…
On October 11, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it entered into a consent order with a national credit union over allegations that the credit union made false and misleading representations to consumers when attempting to collect on past due accounts. The credit union serves military members and their families. The…
Today the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit issued its long-awaited ruling in the PHH v. CFPB appeal (opinion here). LLW has written about the PHH case here and here before, and below are some quick takeaways from the court’s 110-page ruling for industry watchers: The court determined that…
On October 4, 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada issued an order requiring that a racecar driver and several corporate defendants pay $1.3 billion in relation to a Kansas City-based payday lending scheme. The order also bans the individual…
On October 6, 2016, the Illinois Attorney General’s Office (“Illinois AG”) announced that it had reached a settlement with a small-dollar consumer lender for approximately $3.5 million, resolving allegations that the lender violated the Illinois Financial Services Development Act’s 36% interest rate cap. The Illinois AG accused the lender of…
On October 3, 2016, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that two Utah-based Direct Endorsement (DE) lenders agreed to pay $5 million and $4.25 million dollars to settle separate cases relating to their origination and underwriting of mortgage loans insured by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s…
On September 29, the Office of Inspector General for the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD OIG) announced the termination of an investigation of a national mortgage lender relating to a purported mortgage fraud scheme. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey assisted in…
On September 29, 2016, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its Office of Inspector General (HUD OIG) announced a settlement with a mortgage lender relating to two audits of the lender’s Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insured loans. The audits allegedly determined that the lender underwrote FHA-insured loans with…
On September 27, 2016, the Kentucky Attorney General announced that on September 15, 2016, a Franklin Circuit Judge ordered a Florida-based student loan company to cease all operations in Kentucky. The Attorney General’s lawsuit was filed after the Attorney General launched an investigation “into the company’s potentially misleading college loan forgiveness claims aimed…
On September 22, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against a credit repair company for allegedly making misleading representations and charging illegal fees. The case, CFPB v. Prime Marketing Holdings, LLC, No. 2:16-cv-7111 (C.D. Cal.),…
On September 23, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it filed suit against a credit repair company in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, for alleged violations of the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), and the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention…
On September 22, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued a permanent injunction prohibiting five defendants involved in mortgage relief scams from mortgage loan modification and debt relief business. The FTC brought a lawsuit against the five defendants in…
On September 21, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas entered a stipulated order for a permanent injunction and civil penalty judgment against the vice president of a debt collector. Following an investigation of the debt collector by the Federal Trade Commission,…
On September 21, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it filed five individual administrative lawsuits against Arizona title lenders. Each suit concerns allegations that the title lenders’ online advertisements failed to disclose title annual percentage rates, in violation of the Truth in Lending Act. Instead, the Bureau alleged, the companies…
On September 21, 2016, a mortgage lender settled an action brought by the Massachusetts Commissioner of Banks by stipulating to the entry of a consent order to resolve claims of “alleged non-compliance with applicable Massachusetts and federal statutes, rules, and regulations governing the conduct and licensing of those engaged in the…
On September 13, 2016, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced a settlement agreement with a bank for allegedly violating the False Claims Act by improperly underwriting and originating of FHA-insured mortgage loans. According to the DOJ, from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2011, the lender was improperly underwriting and certifying that mortgage loans…