Troutman Sanders’ lawyer David Anthony will be presenting at the upcoming American Conference Institute’s 18th National Forum on Consumer Finance Class Actions & Litigation. The conference will be held April 8-9, 2014 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel &Suites in Los Angeles, CA. David will be presenting on , “CLASS ACTIONS: New and Emerging…

In an annual report issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday, March 31, 2014, the Bureau announced that it had received nearly double the number of consumer complaints in 2013 as compared to 2012. The report noted that 163,700 total complaints were brought to the Bureau’s attention in 2013, a jump from approximately…

On Thursday, March 21, 2014, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Dominguez v. Yahoo!, Inc., held that Yahoo did not violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) because Yahoo’s SMS system could not “randomly or sequentially generate telephone numbers.” The Dominquez court is the most recent to weigh in on one of the most…

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster recently announced a settlement with a business alleged to have improperly marketed limited-time extended warranty programs for vehicles.  The AG stated that the settlement “highlights [his office’s] efforts to clean up the auto service contract industry in Missouri and protect consumers from future deceptive sales practices.”

According to the AG,…

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continued “Operation Steer Clear” – a crackdown on deceptive advertising by automobile dealers – with a tenth settlement with a dealer accused of misrepresenting the terms of available consumer leases.

Courtesy Auto Group, Inc., a Massachusetts auto dealer, agreed to a proposed settlement with the FTC under which…

As we have mentioned in previous posts, Operation Choke Point is a federal Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force, created in 2009, including law enforcement and regulators from the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. To attack financial fraud, the Task Force has been issuing subpoenas to banks for financial…

This month, the Federal Trade Commission charged an Arkansas auto dealer, Abernathy Motor Company, and its two principals, with failing to display a “Buyers Guide” on used vehicles offered for sale, as required by the FTC’s Used Car Rule. Before being charged, the FTC had visited the dealer in December 2012 and identified issues of…

In its annual FDCPA report to Congress released on March 20, 2014, the CFPB stated that the industry continues to be plagued by aggressive collection tactics and inaccurate record-keeping.  According to the Bureau, since it began receiving consumer complaints about the industry in July, it has received more than 30,000 complaints concerning debt collection practices.…

On March 11, 2014, the Seventh Circuit ruled that settlement letters sent to debtors concerning the settlement of time-barred debt were misleading even though the letters did not threaten litigation.

The plaintiffs were both Illinois residents with outstanding debt that was subject to the state’s four-year statutes of limitations, and the collection firms named in…

As a part of its plans to modernize regulation of the debt collection industry, the CFPB announced on February 26, 2014, that it will begin the process of soliciting consumer input to “learn about their experiences interacting with the debt collection industry” – specifically their most recent contact with debt collectors and whether they recognized…