Earlier this week, InsideArm identified a subtle change to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s website that may reflect an unannounced change in the regulations governing third-party collection agencies in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s website now indicates the following:

The Attorney General has issued debt collection regulations that establish standards by defining unfair and deceptive acts

The Federal Trade Commission proposed a rule requiring consumer reporting agencies to provide free credit monitoring service to active duty military members that would electronically notify these consumers of “material” changes to their file within 24 hours. The deadline to submit comments on the proposed rule is January 7, 2019.

The proposed rule implements the

The states of most complaint, you ask?  – California, Florida, Texas, New York, and Georgia.

In October, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its Complaint Snapshot, which supplements the Consumer Response Annual Report and provides an overview of trends in consumer complaints received by the Bureau.

The Snapshot revealed that the CFPB has received 1.5

On October 23, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington denied a defendant debt collector’s motion to dismiss a class action claim brought under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act based on the debt collector’s alleged failure to report a debt as disputed in violation of FDCPA § 1692e(8).  The Court in

On October 31, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania issued an opinion in Guzman v. HOVG, LLC, No. 18-3013, (E.D. Pa. Oct. 31, 2018), denying a debt collector’s motion to dismiss a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act-based action because the validation notice included in the collection letter did not clearly state that the debtor can

In Cooper v. Retrieval-Masters Creditors Bureau, Inc., 16 C2827, —F. Supp. 3d—, 2018 WL 2299203 (N.D. Ill. May 21, 2018), appeal filed (7th Cir. June 20, 2018), available here, plaintiff Jack Wesley Cooper alleged violations of the Fair Debt Collection Protection Act (“FDCPA”), seeking statutory and actual damages and attorneys’ fees.

At a

In a recent decision dismissing a purported class action against Zillow Group, Inc., launched by disgruntled purchasers of the company’s securities, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington provided a remarkably thorough—and an eminently useful—distillation of the federal judiciary’s emergent application of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974

Tim St. George, a partner in Troutman Sanders’ Consumer Financial Services practice, has been nominated as one of twenty-two of Virginia Lawyers Media’s Up & Coming Lawyers for 2018.  The “Up & Coming Lawyers” awards program, now in its third year, recognizes lawyers across the commonwealth who are making their mark within their first 10

On October 23, the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General sued multiple New York debt collection companies for using false and deceptive tactics to collect on debts.  On October 26, the United States District Court for the Western District of New York granted a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) prohibiting the defendants from