Imagine being charged $35 because you bought a $7 sandwich and didn’t realize your paycheck hadn’t cleared yet. Now imagine your elected officials voting to keep it that way… on purpose. That’s not a bad dream. It’s what just happened in Washington. Congress Just Killed a Rule That Would’ve Saved You Billions On March 27, …
The National Association of Credit Services Organizations (NACSO) is still in the battle with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). You can see the history of the case here. The issue appears to be unhappiness over the fee limitations that the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) creates. NASCO would like …
It’s official, bankruptcy reform in 2005 totally sucked for people with private student loans. Academic research shows lenders won and consumers lost. Here is the abstract from a paper in the Harvard Law & Policy Review by Alexei Alexandrov and Dalie Jimenez that looks at the data of how the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and …
The behemoth student loan originator and servicer Navient was sued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for basically providing bad service and advice to six million student loan debtors it is contracted to serve for the Department of Education. This horrible advice extended the time in debt and cost of repayment. Navient’s defense is …
An interesting academic paper out which studies Consumer Financial Protection (CFPB) complaint reporting found the reporting assisted both consumers and the credit card companies. The investigation looked at the results of public reporting of complaints and found “Consumers procrastinate in reporting exposed banks while rewarding exposed banks for their improved behavior with new accounts.” Most …
Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is suing the nation’s largest servicer of both federal and private student loans for systematically and illegally failing borrowers at every stage of repayment. For years, Navient, formerly part of Sallie Mae, created obstacles to repayment by providing bad information, processing payments incorrectly, and failing to act when …
Yesterday the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced they took action against companies that sold consumers on an equity accelerator program. Typically these programs make payments every two weeks instead of once a month and that gives people one extra mortgage payment a year to reduce the balance owed faster. But the unbelievable part of this …
I could not help but notice an absence of some familiar faces in an announcement by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) today on financial education. The CFPB announced an inspired national project to help those most in need to get more education about managing their finances. You would have expected the National Foundation for …
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and National Credit Union Administration are all asking banks and lenders to be gentle with borrowers. The agencies are encouraging financial institutions to work with customers affected by the federal government …
Tomorrow the CFPB will publish final rules regarding the collection of money owed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It is very possible that fines levied against companies and individuals will fall under the rules. With tougher enforcements to come from the CFPB in the debt relief space, participants should be aware of the powers …