Two major groups within the financial industry began the month of March with renewed advocacy for structural modifications to the student loan program managed by the U.S. Department of Education, which currently issues about 90% of student loans.
First, in early March, the Consumer Bankers Association, a trade organization representing financial
On February 21, the United States Department of Education, led by Secretary Elisabeth Dee DeVos, issued a memorandum indicating it was considering stepping into the debate over the standard used to determine whether a student loan can be discharged under the Bankruptcy Code. The request for public comment appears aimed in part at revisiting allowing
The FTC has just issued its annual report, the Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book, aggregating data on the 2.68 million consumer complaints that it received in 2017. This number is down from a peak in consumer complaints during 2015 – 3.04 million complaints – and last year’s total of 2.98 million.
According to the FTC’s
The Federal Communications Commission announced on March 6 that it would vote at a March 22 meeting on a proposal to create a database of phone numbers that have been reassigned. Reassigned phone numbers are those numbers initially belonging to an individual that are given up or relinquished (usually through account inactivation) and are then
In a decision of far-reaching importance, a Virginia trial court recently ruled – twice – that small loan companies are exempt from regulation under the Virginia Consumer Protection Act (“VCPA”).
In its original ruling, handed down in late January, the Circuit Court for the City of Richmond rejected the position of the Virginia Attorney General’s
On February 28, Mick Mulvaney, the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, delivered remarks at the winter meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General (“NAAG”) in which he outlined the CFPB’s strategic vision and enforcement priorities.
More Enforcement Leadership from State Attorneys General
In his comments, Mulvaney stressed that, moving forward, the
On February 27, the Federal Trade Commission filed an Agreement Containing Consent Order (“Agreement”) with respect to an administrative Complaint that the FTC had filed against PayPal, Inc. The Agreement requires PayPal to correct the issues that the FTC alleged in the Complaint as violations of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the Privacy Rule and Regulation P,
DirecTV was on the receiving end of a proposed class action in the Central District of California earlier this week alleging the direct broadcast satellite service provider violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act and California state law by pulling credit reports on consumers without a permissible purpose. A copy of the complaint is available here
It is well known that secrets don’t make friends, and if you’re a public operating company, this is especially true for disclosures related to material cybersecurity issues. Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a guidance that serves as a reminder for public companies of their cybersecurity disclosure requirements under federal securities laws. The
A district court in Maryland has ruled that a debt collection agency did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692 (“FDCPA”)’s mini-Miranda requirement by failing to disclose its identity in a call initiated by the plaintiff in response to a debt collection letter.
Background
Consumer plaintiff Rhonda Price-Richardson defaulted on