On December 30, 2020, Judge Richard J. Leon on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia entered an Order in PayPal, Inc. v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, et al., No. 19-3700-RJL, 2020 WL 7773392 (D.D.C. Dec. 30, 2020) invalidating two provisions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“the CFPB” or “Bureau”)’s “Prepaid

In anticipation of the “GSE patch” expiring, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued several final rules in 2020 to amend Regulation Z (“Reg. Z”). Concerns have existed that the expiration of the GSE patch would restrict consumer mortgage credit unless the CFPB created a permanent version of the GSE patch or revised the General

Seven state attorneys general, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, reached a settlement with Residual Pumpkin Entity LLC (formerly known as CafePress LLC) (“CafePress”), related to a 2019 data security incident, exposing 22 million customer accounts and as many as 186,000 social security and tax identification numbers.

Background

Based on the state attorneys

On remand from the United States Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau v. Seila Law LLC, reaffirmed a District Court grant of a petition by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Petitioner-Appellee, to enforce a civil investigatory demand issued to Seila Law LLC, Respondent-Appellant,

Midwest Recovery Systems (“Midwest Recovery”), a debt collection company, must cease its alleged debt-parking practices, delete all reported debts, and surrender its remaining assets in partial payment of a $24.3 million monetary judgment, under a stipulated order filed by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) last week. Debt parking, also known as “passive debt collection,” occurs

We reported in September of this year on a demand from multiple consumer advocacy groups to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) to rescind its April 1, 2020, credit report guidance that relaxed the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s (“FCRA”) deadlines to investigate consumer-initiated direct disputes. In a letter dated November 9, 2020, CFPB Director Kathleen

Following a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) investigation into its credit reporting procedures, telecommunications debt collector Afni, Inc. agreed Thursday to implement additional safeguards against inaccurate reporting and pay a $500,000 civil penalty.

The CFPB’s investigation found that Afni had violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) in several ways. First, Afni had negligently furnished

New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on November 4, 2020, that the State will continue the suspension of its debt collection efforts of medical and student debt through the remainder of the calendar year. The suspension, which was originally instituted during March 2020 as part of the state’s response to

On October 29, 2020, the FTC hosted its most recent “Green Lights & Red Flags” workshop. This virtual workshop focused on recent fraud patterns, advertising compliance, and data security.

Fraud Fashioned Under COVID-19. The pandemic’s effect on the consumer protection world was front and center at this year’s workshop. According to Andrew Smith, Director of

The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (“FACTA”) forbids sellers who accept credit cards from including more than the last five digits of a buyer’s credit card number on a purchase receipt. Yet including more than those five digits will not, by itself, make a seller liable under FACTA, according to a decision issued by