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James K. Trefil is counsel in Troutman Pepper’s Consumer Financial Services practice, with a primary focus on Financial Services Litigation. His practice includes the representation of clients in federal and state court, both at the trial and appellate level, with a focus on areas of complex litigation, financial services litigation and consumer litigation. James has represented clients within these areas in a wide variety of litigation matters involving class actions, contracts, torts, and federal and state consumer protection laws.

On October 24, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection entered into a Consent Order with Cash Express, LLC relating to allegations it engaged in deceptive and abusive acts or practices in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, codified at 12 U.S.C. §§ 5531, 5536(a)(1)(B).  Pursuant to the Consent Order, Cash Express agreed to a

On May 15, an en banc panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision finding the statute of limitations for an alleged violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act begins on the date the violation occurs, not on the date the debtor discovers the violation. The ruling adds to the growing

A district court in the Northern District of Illinois recently granted a debt collector’s motion to compel arbitration in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act lawsuit even though it could not provide the original bill of sale to prove it purchased the debt and the concomitant rights to enforce the arbitration provision in the underlying

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently affirmed a lower court decision finding that a debt collector’s verification and investigation of a consumer’s disputes through its review of records obtained from the creditor was both satisfactory under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and reasonable under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

On March 29, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rendered a long-awaited opinion in what is commonly called a “reverse-Avila” or “current account balance” case, holding that it is not a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) for a debt collector to state a consumer’s

In a new article detailing its Stats for December 2017 and Year in Review, WebRecon presented data showing a slight decrease in the number of consumer litigation lawsuits filed in 2017 compared to other years. We previously reported on WebRecon’s consumer litigation statistics for May of 2017, where we found the number of new

As we previously reported, Mick Mulvaney, acting interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, announced a change to the CFPB’s governing philosophy to focus on quantitative analysis to guide the Bureau’s future regulatory and enforcement actions. As an example of this new emphasis on hard data, Mulvaney pointed to the fact that almost

On February 12, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued a precedential opinion in which it found that a debt collector’s inclusion of the word “settlement” in a collection letter for a statutorily time-barred debt suggested to the least sophisticated debtor the debt was still legally enforceable could therefore constitute potential violation of the Fair

On Tuesday, White House budget director and acting interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, introduced his plan for a more tempered, data-driven, governing philosophy for the CFPB.

In a three-page memo sent to CFPB employees, Mulvaney emphasized the CFPB would continue to enforce consumer protection laws but stressed it would operate

On December 14, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau officially withdrew a proposal to conduct a web-based consumer survey on the various debt collection disclosures required by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. According to the accompanying Notice of Action, the proposal was withdrawn at the CFPB’s request because the “Bureau leadership would like to