On April 18, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) published a blog post, scrutinizing the practice of withholding transcripts from students with delinquent accounts and who are attending an institute of higher education.
The practice of withholding transcripts as a collections tactic has never been popular with regulators or consumer advocates. As
In Carroll v. Medicredit, Inc., No. 2:20-cv-01728-KJD-EJY (D. Nev. Mar. 18, 2022), the court denied the parties’ cross motions for judgment on the pleadings as to claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) that arose out of collection calls placed after the parties had agreed to
On March 15, the D.C. Council of the District of Columbia Committee of the Whole met in a full hearing, in part to hear amendments introduced to B24-0357 by Councilmember and Chair Phil Mendelson (D).
B24-0357 is the Protecting Consumers from Unjust Debt Collection Practices Amendment Act of 2021, and was raised by Mendelson in
On February 3, the Nevada Financial Institutions Division (NFID) issued a bulletin, stating that any licensed collection agency or manager must transition their license to the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS) by June 30. Licensees that do not submit a request to transition by June 30 will see their licenses expire without an option for
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, has introduced the Arbitration Fairness for Consumers Act. The legislation, introduced on March 7, proposes to amend Title X of the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 to prohibit pre-dispute arbitration agreements and class-action waivers in contracts
The filing lawsuits under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) increased dramatically in the first month of 2022 when compared to the number of filings in January and December 2021, per a report released recently by Web Recon LLC. The number
In December 2021, a federal judge granted a motion for summary judgment in Mitchell v. Specialized Loan Servicing LLC, holding that defendant Specialized Loan Servicing LLC (Specialized Loan) properly reported plaintiff Eric Mitchell’s (Mitchell) loan status by using a designation indicating “no payment history available this month.” The court held that this designation complied
On February 22, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held oral argument in Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services Inc. (Case Number 19-14434). Almost a year ago, on April 21, 2021, the Court of Appeals issued the original Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services Inc. opinion, which held that (1) a consumer
The Eastern District of Pennsylvania is the most recent federal district court to adopt Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Mgmt. Svcs., Inc., 17 F.4th 1016 (11th Cir. 2021) by holding that the transmission of information to a vendor was a “communication” to a “person,” satisfying the “in connection with the collection of any debt”
A Georgia district court judge recently granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss all claims except for one in Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) case Lee v. Medicredit. The court held that what constitutes a “reasonable period of time” for lack of response from a consumer’s attorney cannot be decided at the motion to