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The Federal Trade Commission settled its first-ever action against individual social media influencers for failing to disclose connections to brands the influencers endorsed.  The action – against Trevor Martin (also known as “TmarTn”), Thomas Cassell (also known as “Syndicate”), and CSGOLotto, Inc. – alleged that Martin and Cassell endorsed CSGOLotto on their social media pages…

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently released its Summer 2017 Supervisory Highlights, which summarizes the agency’s supervisory activities during the first half of this year.

Looking to the numbers.  From January through June, the CFPB’s nonpublic supervisory activities led to restitution payments that totaled approximately $14 million, and public enforcement actions that netted an…

In January 2013, a teenager in Australia posted a photo online showing that his “footlong” Subway sandwich was in fact only 11 inches, setting off a viral storm of consumers discovering their “footlong” sandwiches were similarly not as large as advertised.  That spawned a number of class action lawsuits in America accusing Subway’s franchisor, Doctor’s …

Two recent decisions from the Southern District of New York and the District of New Jersey have expressly disagreed about a credit repair company’s dispute of a debt on behalf of a consumer in two Fair Debt Collection Practices Act cases. 

In Taylor-Burns v. AR Resources, Inc., plaintiff Tonya Taylor-Burns alleged that the debt …

On September 6, the Federal Reserve published “Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System: Federal Reserve Next Steps in the Payments Improvement Journey,” a paper outlining the updated tactics the Federal Reserve intends to pursue to help improve the U.S. payment system.  The paper follows up on the January 2015 paper entitled “Strategies for Improving…

On August 24, the United States District Court for the Western District of New York entered a Stipulated Order for Permanent Injunction and Monetary Judgment against the last of a group of defendants who engaged in banned debt collection practices.  The defendant, Anthony Coppola, is now barred from debt collection activities, misrepresenting material facts of…

On August 25, 2017, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia entered an order granting multiple Defendants’ consolidated motion for sanctions against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Defendants’ Rule 37 motion alleged the CFPB failed to produce a knowledgeable deposition witness and also failed to follow the Court’s various orders to…

On August 29, yet another Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action was filed in the Middle District of Florida. This suit, however, is a bit different than others that we have seen.

In Gillmore v. Lokey Automotive Group, Inc., the complaint alleges that text messages sent to the plaintiff April Gillmore by an automobile dealership…

On August 21, the Federal Trade Commission charged a North Carolina debt collection operation with using deception and intimidation to collect money from consumers for debts they did not owe or that the group had no right to collect.  On August 24, the District Court for the Western District of North Carolina granted a temporary…

On July 18, the District Court for the Central District of California granted in part and denied in part a motion for attorneys’ fees, costs, and other payments in a Fair Credit Reporting Act class action suit.  The motion accompanied a proposed $400,000 settlement, with a third of the funds allocated to class counsel for…