On July 9, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals entered a non-precedential opinion upholding a district court’s ruling that a third-party collection agency could not invoke a creditor’s mandatory arbitration agreement against a plaintiff that brought claims against the collection agency for violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act on the facts before the
In a recent decision, the California Supreme Court held that plaintiffs do not need to demonstrate a plan for identifying and notifying class members in order to certify a class, as long as they can point to “objective characteristics and common transaction facts” that will allow the court to ascertain the class in the future.
On July 24, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed new, comprehensive robocall reform. Passed by a vote of 429-3, the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act (“SBRA”) would give the Federal Communications Commission novel methods to enforce existing anti-robocall laws in addition to allowing the FCC to go after violators more strictly. Beyond giving the FCC the
On July 24, the Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint against Cambridge Analytica, alleging that the company deceived consumers by falsely claiming it did not collect any personally identifiable information from Facebook users. The FTC alleges that Cambridge Analytica in fact collected users’ Facebook User ID—which can include users’ real names—as well as other
Aspiring plaintiffs continue to litigate the issue of an attorney’s role in sending debt collection letters. Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a debt collector may not use false or misleading representations in the collection of a debt. 15 U.S.C. § 1692(e). In Bencomo v. Forster & Garbus LLP, et al., No.
On July 25, the Federal Trade Commission published a request for public comment on its implementation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) through the COPPA Rule.
COPPA regulates how websites and online services collect data and personal information from children. The FTC’s COPPA Rule requires that such operators who collect personal information from
On July 11, the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing entitled “Who’s Keeping Score? Holding Credit Bureaus Accountable and Repairing a Broken System.” The hearing involved a series of bills that would potentially reform the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The proposed bills, which were advanced on a party-line vote
Bombas, a manufacturer of socks, settled with the New York Attorney General over failing to give proper notification of a breach of customers’ credit card data in 2014. Bombas initially addressed the breach in 2014 when it determined that hackers had gained access to the information of nearly 40,000 customers, including names, addresses, and credit
On July 18, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a report analyzing market data from 2004 through 2018 on third-party debt collections tradelines reflected on credit reports compiled by the nationwide consumer reporting agencies. The CFPB segmented the report into two parts: buyers (entities that purchase debts and then collect on them) and non-buyers (entities
On July 11, FINRA issued Regulatory Notice (RN) 19-23, providing new details on how member firms and associated persons can receive credit for “extraordinary cooperation” with an investigation. RN 19-23 expands on RN 08-70, issued during 2008, by providing specifics as to what actions an investigated party could undertake to support its efforts in seeking