On June 23, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it reached a settlement with three companies that issued contracts for deeds with consumers. According to the CFPB, between 2010 and 2016, these companies allegedly had a business plan of acquiring foreclosed properties in bulk and reselling them to consumers through seller financing…
On May 22, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (Mass AG) announced that they had filed a complaint against a credit repair company and the owner of the company in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleging that they had engaged in deceptive…
On May 19, 2020, a coalition of 34 state attorneys general announced a settlement of over $550 million with an auto financing company. The settlement is the result of a five year, multi-state investigation into the company’s subprime lending practices. The company is alleged to have used a sophisticated credit scoring…
On May 19, 2020, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had reached a $40.2 million settlement with a payment processing company and one of its executives after the company allegedly failed to monitor and heed warnings that the executive was processing payments and laundering for fraudulent companies. The simultaneously-filed complaint alleges that…
On January 24, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a policy statement setting forth guidelines on how it intends to enforce the “abusiveness” standard under the Dodd-Frank Act. Section 103(a) of the Dodd-Frank Act authorizes the CFPB to bring enforcement actions against “covered persons” engaged in unfair, deceptive,…
On January 30, 2020, the CFPB filed a complaint against a national bank in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. The complaint alleges that the bank violated the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), 15 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq., TILA’s implementing Regulation Z, 12 C.F.R. pt. 1026, and the Consumer…
On January 27, 2020, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (North Carolina AG) reached a settlement with an out-of-state payday lender for $825,000. The Attorney General obtained a consent temporary restraining order against the lender in May 2019 based on allegations that the lender was not licensed to operate in North Carolina, yet…
On August 14, 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Office of the Arkansas Attorney General (AG) entered into a proposed stipulated final judgment with three corporations that brokered extensions of credit to consumers, and the co-founder and owner of one of the corporations. The simultaneously filed complaint, filed…
On August 12, 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a proposed settlement with a for-profit higher-education institution. The CFPB filed a complaint against the institution in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on February 26, 2014, alleging that the institution had violated the Consumer…
On June 14, 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a settlement with a private student loan provider that issued and managed student loans at the now-defunct for-profit ITT Technical Institute. Forty-five states including Kansas, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, Oregon, and New York also settled with the loan…
On June 13, 2019, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it filed a complaint and settlement agreement in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana resolving allegations against a Midwestern bank based in Indiana. The DOJ alleged that the bank engaged in lending discrimination through “redlining,” or intentionally avoiding providing services in predominantly…