On April 6, the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with Tapplock, Inc. for falsely claiming in its privacy policy that its fingerprint-sensing smart locks were “unbreakable” and that it followed “industry best practices” to ensure that a user’s personal information was protected. After three security researchers identified various physical and electronic vulnerabilities with the
A new bill was proposed on April 7 in the House of Representatives which, if passed, would amend the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The proposed bill aims to regulate how medical debts are handled under these statutes.
The bill’s current name is: “To amend the Fair Credit Reporting
Several coronavirus (“COVID-19”) response bills were introduced in the New Jersey Senate this past week. Among them is the “COVID-19 Financial Security for Consumers Act,” which aims to prohibit creditors and debt collectors from collection activities during the pandemic and requires health insurance carriers to cover treatment for COVID-19. A summary of the
On April 7, the Council for the District of Columbia unanimously passed the COVID-19 Response Supplemental Emergency Amendment Act of 2020 (“Emergency Act”) an emergency relief bill for D.C.’s residents and businesses. Title II of the Emergency Act, captioned “Business Development and Consumer Protection,” directly and dramatically affects consumer financial services operations. This legislation includes
The Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a Mortgagee Letter on April 1 with guidance spelling out how it will implement one of the key provisions of the CARES Act. The Mortgagee Letter spells out special loss mitigation options that mortgagees are required to offer to borrowers on any Federal Housing Administration Title II
New York’s legislature granted final approval last Thursday to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed 2021 Executive Budget, ending a months-long policy battle to focus instead on the ongoing war with the coronavirus (“COVID-19”). The approved budget, however, is substantially different than the one originally proffered by Gov. Cuomo on January 21, 2020. As New
On April 3, Maryland Governor Lawrence J. Hogan, Jr. issued “Executive Order No. 20-04-03-01, Amending and Restating the Order Dated March 16, 2020 Temporarily Prohibiting Evictions of Tenants Suffering Substantial Loss of Income Due to COVID-19, and Additionally Prohibiting Certain Repossessions, Stopping Initiation of Residential Mortgage Foreclosures, Prohibiting Commercial Evictions, and Allowing Suspension of Certain
On April 7, 2020, the Second Circuit added more uncertainty to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) with its decision on the meaning of an automatic telephone dialing system (“ATDS”) in Duran v. La Boom Disco, Inc. Breaking from recent Seventh and Eleventh Circuit decisions, which followed the statutory language in requiring random and
On April 3, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the State’s 2021 Executive Budget into law, which includes a provision shortening the time period for a lawsuit to be filed on medical debt to three years. Although budgetary constraints caused by the coronavirus (“COVID-19”) pandemic have forced the State to scrap
After a flood of calls to its office, on April 3, the Office of the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued Guidance in Response to Some Frequently Asked Questions (“Guidance”) related to its prior emergency order regarding debt collection, codified at 940 CMR 35.00. The Guidance answers several questions,