The Federal Trade Commission has announced the topics of the two panels at its upcoming Debt Collection Dialogue in Atlanta. Sam Olens of the Office of the Georgia Attorney General will co-host the event. Earlier Dialogues were held in Buffalo and Dallas. This is the third and final scheduled Dialogue.
The first panel in Atlanta,
According to the October debt collection litigation and complaint statistics report from WebRecon, consumer litigation in October under the FDCPA, TCPA, and FCRA marked the first time since September 2011 that an increase from both the prior month and year-to-date occurred. “For the first time in several years, overall consumer litigation is up dramatically,”
On November 16, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission released a memorandum of understanding designed to formalize their plans to coordinate consumer protection efforts.
The FCC is charged with regulating all interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable, while the FTC is primarily responsible for preventing unfair or
On November 10, a New Jersey debt collection law firm pressed the Third Circuit to reverse the district court’s ruling that a four-second review of a debt collection complaint does not constitute “meaningful attorney involvement.”
As we previously reported, in Bock v. Pressler & Pressler, LLP, the United States District Court for the
On November 3, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it has revised its appeals process and issued a new appeals policy. The announcement was made in conjunction with the release of the CFPB’s Fall 2015 Supervisory Highlights. According to the Bureau, the “revisions reflect experience gained in the appeals process so far, and
On November 4, 2015, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), 47 State Attorneys General, and other state and local law enforcement authorities from around the country announced the first coordinated federal-state enforcement initiative targeting deceptive and abusive debt collection practices. The initiative, named Operation Collection Protection, aims to crackdown on collectors who use illegal tactics
On October 28, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed an administrative consent order against Security National Automotive Acceptance Company (“SNAAC”), an Ohio auto lender specializing in loans to service members, for engaging in illegal debt collection practices. The order requires the company to refund or credit about $2.28 million to service members and other consumers
On October 29, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a complaint in the Southern District of California against Global Financial Support, Inc. and its owner and CEO, Armond Aria, for allegedly engaging in a nationwide student financial aid scam.
The Bureau claims that Defendants violated the UDAAP provisions of the Consumer Financial Protection Act when
In July 2015, several companies that were the targets of non-public Consumer Financial Protection Bureau investigations sued the Bureau after it refused to allow their current counsel to attend the Bureau’s investigative testimony of one of the companies’ former attorneys. The companies wanted one of their current attorneys to attend the testimony and assert the
On October 20, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit delivered its opinion in Ybarra v. DISH Network, LLC (“DISH”), a case involving alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits callers from using an automatic telephone dialer system (“ATDS”) and delivering messages with an “artificial or prerecorded voice” without