FCRA

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The Third Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a district court’s reading of an exception into §1681s-2(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that would allow a furnisher discretion to refuse to investigate an indirect dispute it deems frivolous or irrelevant. Instead, the Third Circuit held that a furnisher must investigate even frivolous indirect disputes — disputes submitted by a consumer first to a consumer reporting agency (CRA) that are then transmitted by the CRA to the furnisher. A copy of the decision can be found here.

As discussed here, on September 21 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released an outline of its plans for rulemaking under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The outline was supplied for initial comment to a panel of small business representatives convened under the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA).

Yesterday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) (collectively, the agencies) filed an amici curiae brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to reverse a district court’s decision finding a furnisher’s investigation of a consumer’s dispute and subsequent furnishing of the disputed information to be reasonable under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

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

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today outlined a plan for rulemaking under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that could significantly impact the entire consumer data ecosystem. The proposed rulemaking could redefine “data brokers” and “data aggregators” and extend FCRA regulation to businesses that do not currently meet the FCRA’s definition of “consumer reporting agency.” The CFPB’s plan could also impose stricter rules for obtaining consumer consent and increase compliance requirements and risks for both new and existing members of the FCRA-regulated consumer data ecosystem.

In Hansen v. Mountain America Federal Credit Union, the plaintiff became delinquent on a credit card account with her credit union. The credit union then assigned the debt to a third-party collection agency. Following the assignment, the collection agency opened its own tradeline for the debt, while the credit union also continued to report the debt. Although the credit union’s tradeline was updated to reflect that the account was “closed” and in collections, and the collection agency’s tradeline indicated that the credit union was the original creditor, both tradelines showed a balance, albeit for different amounts — $18,340 for the credit union and $20,875 for the collection agency.

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.