In March 2014, the Federal Trade Commission issued a bulletin entitled Background Checks: What Job Applicants and Employees Should Know, which set forth and summarized a number of the laws and regulations on the use of employment background checks, both prior to and subsequent to hiring.

In November, the FTC issued a second such

A group of 16 state attorneys general recently wrote Richard Cordray, head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a letter encouraging the CFPB to take immediate action to crack down on pre-dispute mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer agreements for financial products or services.  Specifically, while acknowledging that additional actions may be necessary to “fully address

The American Financial Services Association (AFSA), a consumer credit industry trade association, released a study this month that took issue with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s method of measuring discrimination in the automotive lending business.

The study, which was carried out by Charles River Associates and based on over eight million vehicle finance contracts issued

Thirty-eight state and territorial attorneys general recently sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission requesting that it update its Telemarketing Sales Rules to help further protect against telemarketing fraud and abuse.

While the state attorneys general support existing Telemarketing Sales Rules, the group listed a number of concerns, including:

  • An increase in the number

The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York this month brought criminal charges against Williams Scott & Associates LLC and seven of its employees for allegedly engaging in illegal practices to collect more than $4 million from 6,000 victims across the country.

The charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud followed a

On November 25, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it plans to push back three key rulemakings until next year.  These rulemakings center on overdraft protection, payday lending, and debt collection.  The agenda released by the CFPB stated that it would issue proposals on these issues in the first seven months of 2015.  This

On November 20, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray urged financial institutions to develop faster systems for processing electronic funds transfers (EFTs).  In his prepared remarks, however, he insisted that these faster systems must offer robust consumer protections.

According to Cordray, the U. S. banking system needs improvement in the ability to process

After facing speculation as to whether Uber sufficiently screens the backgrounds of its drivers, Uber is now facing a class action under the Fair Credit Reporting Act for allegedly failing to conduct background checks in accordance with the FCRA.  This lawsuit provides another example of the minefield companies face when conducting pre-employment background checks.

According

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane recently filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Think Finance, a Texas-based company, for allegedly engineering an illegal payday loan scheme over the Internet.  The lawsuit, filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, alleges that the company targets Philadelphia consumers in violation of state law. 

The suit

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Federal Trade Commission filed two complaints against multiple companies operating “multi-million dollar schemes to sell tech support services to consumers nationwide,” according to a news release by the State Attorney General’s office.

According to Bondi and the FTC, the first complaint alleges that Inbound Call Experts LLC, Super