According to a recent report by WebRecon, court filings under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) were slightly up while filings under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) remained unchanged for the month of July. Complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) were down for the month.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether a homeowner association (HOA) assessment constitutes a “credit transaction” under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which would open up an inquiry to the fundamental scope of one of the FCRA’s most important permissible purposes.

A United States district court in Kentucky recently granted defendants’ motion to dismiss a case arising under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) for lack of personal jurisdiction.

On July 24, the California Office of Administrative Law approved the Civil Rights Council’s (the Council) proposed amendment to California’s Employment Regulations Relating to Criminal History, which are set to become effective on October 1, 2023. Among other changes, the amendment modifies the existing regulations regarding employers’ investigation of a job applicant’s criminal history. Notably, the amendment expands the definition of “employer” under those regulations in such a way that could potentially implicate a background screener conducting a background check on behalf of an employer.

According to a recent report by WebRecon, court filings under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) were down for the month of June. This reverses the upward swing seen in these filings in May. Complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) were down in May and remained down for June.

In Frazier v. Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Inc., the Seventh Circuit recently issued an opinion affirming summary judgement in favor of the defendant data furnisher in a suit brought by a consumer under § 1681s-2(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requiring data furnishers upon notice of a dispute to “investigate the disputed data” and “correct or verify the information by returning the ACDV form to the credit reporting agency [CRA] with any amended or verified data inserted next to the old data.” The appellate court rejected the consumer’s argument that the information provided by the furnisher on an ACDV response to a CRA was materially misleading, even though the CRA’s inaccurate interpretation of the ACDV response led the CRA to report that the consumer was currently delinquent on a settled debt.

According to a recent report by WebRecon, the month of May saw a jump significant from the previous month in filings under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), however, remained down.

Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s denial of preliminary injunctive relief to plaintiffs challenging Nevada Senate Bill 248 (S.B. 248), which places new restrictions on the collection of consumer medical debt. In doing so, the court found the bill neither ran afoul of the First Amendment, nor was preempted by the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) or Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Read on for further analysis.

By way of background, S.B. 248 amended chapter 649 of the Nevada Revised Statutes governing debt collection agencies. Passed in response to the uptick in needed medical care caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, S.B. 248 was designed to protect Nevada consumers from potential financial ruin caused by medical debt by imposing new restrictions on the collection of such debt. Among other provisions of the bill, § 7 requires debt collection agencies to send written notification to medical debtors 60 days before taking any action to collect such debt (Section 7 Notice). The Section 7 Notice must inform the debtor that the “medical debt has been assigned to the collection agency” for collection or that the “collection agency has otherwise obtained the medical debt for collection.” During the 60-day period following the notice, a collection agency cannot take “any action to collect a medical debt.” Voluntary payments during the 60-day period are permitted, but a debt collector must disclose to the debtor that “payment is not demanded or due,” and that the “medical debt will not be reported to any credit reporting agency during the 60-day notification period.” Implementing regulations define “action to collect a medical debt” as “any attempt by a collection agency or its manager or agents to collect a medical debt from a medical debtor” and provide examples of what are, and are not, “attempts” to collect such debt.

Do companies that use workplace surveillance tools to make hiring and firing decisions risk violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)? According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) in a recent comment, the answer to that question is yes. The Bureau’s official comment comes in response to a request for information

On June 8, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered a consent order against medical debt collector Phoenix Financial Services for alleged violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).

According to the CFPB, Phoenix sent collection letters to consumers who had disputed the