At a glanceFriday, August 12, 2022

Collection Industry News At A Glance - August 12, 2022
Friday August 12, 2022
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Articles

 
Examining the factors driving high credit card interest rates

When consumers face unexpected expenses and lack the cash to make it from one paycheck to the next, credit cards can provide essential flexibility. More than 175 million Americans have at least one credit card, and at any given time, about half of active credit card accounts carry a balance .

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FTC looking at rules to corral tech firms’ data collection

WASHINGTON (AP) — Whether it’s the fitness tracker on your wrist, the “smart” home appliances in your house or the latest kids’ fad going viral in online videos, they all produce a trove of personal data for big tech companies.

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Credit union difference on display for state legislators

CUNA, Leagues, and credit unions engaged with hundreds of state lawmakers from around the country over the last few weeks at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Atlanta and the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) in Denver.

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CFPB publishes report on impact of medical debt reporting changes

The CFPB recently published a report analyzing how certain actions announced earlier this year by the three largest national consumer reporting agencies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—will affect people who have allegedly unpaid medical debt on their credit reports  The new report is the CFPB’s third report issued this year on medical debt.

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Federal Trade Commission Returns More Than $9.7 Million To Consumers Harmed by LendingClub’s Deceptive Hidden Fees

The Federal Trade Commission is sending payments totaling more than $9.7 million to 61,990 consumers who were charged hidden fees by LendingClub Corporation.

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50% of parents with student loan debt say they will not be able to meet basic financial needs if payment pause ends, survey says

WASHINGTON, DC (KFOR) – A new survey from ParentsTogether Action shows that an overwhelming amount of parents found the repayment pause helpful and made a positive difference for their families. The pause began in March 2020 and gave 42 million student loan borrowers a pause from monthly payments that gained interest during the pandemic. If President Joe Biden lets the pause expire at the end of August, 50% said they would not be about to meet basic financial needs.

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A phantom debt collection scam duped consumers out of more than $1 million. Here are 5 ways you can avoid falling victim

Almost 2,000 consumers who were conned into paying debts they didn’t owe are in the process of getting their money returned to them. More than $1 million, or an average of $516 for each payment, is being returned to the victims either via PayPal or a mailed check, the Federal Trade Commission recently announcedConsumers will be recovering all the money they lost to the scammers,” the FTC noted.

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CFPB Takes Action to Protect the Public from Shoddy Data Security Practices

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) confirmed in a circular published today that financial companies may violate federal consumer financial protection law when they fail to safeguard consumer data. The circular provides guidance to consumer protection enforcers, including examples of when firms can be held liable for lax data security protocols.

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FTC Explores Rules Cracking Down on Commercial Surveillance and Lax Data Security Practices

The Federal Trade Commission today announced it is exploring rules to crack down on harmful commercial surveillance and lax data security. Commercial surveillance is the business of collecting, analyzing, and profiting from information about people. Mass surveillance has heightened the risks and stakes of data breaches, deception, manipulation, and other abuses. The FTC’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeks public comment on the harms stemming from commercial surveillance and whether new rules are needed to protect people’s privacy and information.

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Director Chopra’s Prepared Remarks at the 2022 National Association of Attorneys General Presidential Summit

Thank you for inviting me to be here with you in Iowa to talk about consumer protection in the digital world. The pandemic accelerated the digitization of our daily lives. Health, transportation, education, and much more have been transformed.

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CFPB and DOJ Caution Auto Industry on SCRA Protections

Auto finance companies and others in the auto space should take note of a recent joint letter issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Department of Justice (DOJ) about the legal protections under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). In the letter, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra set out that “[t]he CFPB is closely monitoring the auto finance industry to ensure that servicemembers and their families are being treated fairly.”

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U.S. FORECLOSURE ACTIVITY DROPS 4 PERCENT IN JULY 2022

IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ATTOM, a leading curator of real estate data nationwide for land and property data, today released its July 2022 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, which shows there were a total of 30,358 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — down 4 percent from a month ago but up 143 percent from a year ago. 

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CoreLogic: National Mortgage Delinquencies Reach Another New Low in May

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CoreLogic, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today released its monthly Loan Performance Insights Report for May 2022. For the month of May, 2.7% of all mortgages in the U.S. were in some stage of delinquency (30 days or more past due, including those in foreclosure), representing a 2 percentage point decrease compared to 4.7% in May 2021.

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CFPB Takes Action Against Hello Digit for Lying to Consumers About Its Automated Savings Algorithm

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is taking action against Hello Digit, LLC, a financial technology company that used a faulty algorithm that caused overdrafts and overdraft penalties for customers. Hello Digit was meant to save people money, but instead the company falsely guaranteed no overdrafts with its product, broke its promises to make amends on its mistakes, and pocketed a portion of the interest that should have gone to consumers. Today’s order requires Hello Digit to pay redress to its harmed customers. It also fines the company $2.7 million for its actions.

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CFPB Warns that Digital Marketing Providers Must Comply with Federal Consumer Finance Protections

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an interpretive rule laying out when digital marketing providers for financial firms must comply with federal consumer financial protection law. Digital marketers that are involved in the identification or selection of prospective customers or the selection or placement of content to affect consumer behavior are typically service providers for purposes of the law. Digital marketers acting as service providers can be held liable by the CFPB or other law enforcers for committing unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices as well as other consumer financial protection violations.

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AG Ferguson: Providence’s collection agencies broke the law while collecting medical debts

SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced that he expanded his lawsuit against 14 Providence-affiliated hospitals, including five Swedish hospitals, by adding two collection agencies that worked for the hospitals. The Attorney General’s underlying consumer protection lawsuit stems from Providence’s charity care and collections practices impacting tens of thousands of patients and hundreds of millions of dollars in medical debt.

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A Virtual Technical Readiness Session: Regulatory Data Collection at CFPB, HMDA and the road ahead

This event will be a technical conversation about software used by financial institutions to facilitate compliance with the CFPB’s small business lending rulemaking (referred to as 1071). The CFPB 1071 technical team will share insights into how the CFPB generally builds regulatory compliance systems for the intake of submitted information from financial institutions, such as Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) reporting system.

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CFPB to hold technical implementation meetings on 1071 reporting

Because the CFPB continues work on its Dodd Frank Act Part 1071 rulemaking—which pertains to the gathering of small enterprise lending information—the bureau will maintain two occasions within the coming weeks to debate technical implementation of the rule’s reporting necessities. In keeping with the CFPB’s spring rulemaking agenda that was launched earlier this summer season, a remaining rule is anticipated in March 2023

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Trade groups petition CFPB to adopt larger participant rule for data aggregators

Eight national trade groups have filed a petition with the CFPB that urges the Bureau to engage in rulemaking to define larger participants in the market for data aggregation services. The trade groups are the American Bankers Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Credit Union National Association, Housing Policy Counsel, Independent Community Bankers of America, National Association of Federally Insured Credit Unions, National Bankers Association, and Clearing House Association. The petition has been docketed by the CFPB pursuant to the new procedure that the CFPB established in February 2022 for members of the public to submit petitions for rulemaking (including amendments to or repeals of existing rules).

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Eleventh Circuit Holds TILA-Required Mortgage Statements Can Violate FDCPA

When mortgage servicers use periodic statements sent under the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) to collect a debt, they can be held liable under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) for any misleading or unconscionable representations made in those statements. Applying this reasoning, the Eleventh Circuit recently overturned a dismissal of a FDCPA case — Lamirand v. Fay Servicing, LLC — by a district court, which found that the statements were not subject to the FDCPA because they were required to be sent by the TILA.

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Ginnie Mae recognizes credit unions as regulated depositories

The Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA, or Ginnie Mae) issued an amendment to its mortgage-backed securities guide removing credit unions’ categorization as non-bank mortgage lenders and recognizing them as insured depositories regulated by prudential regulator. CUNA has engaged with Ginnie Mae on this topic several times in recent months to get the categorization altered.

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Attorney General Bonta Urges Californians to Take Advantage of Limited-Time Waiver Expanding Access to Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program

OAKLAND – California Attorney General Rob Bonta today urged Californians to take advantage of recent changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) and Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness (TEPSLF) programs. Last year, the Department of Education (ED) launched a limited-time PSLF Waiver Opportunity that runs through October 31, 2022, allowing eligible borrowers to receive credit for past payments made on loans that would otherwise not qualify under the PSLF program. This move by ED to improve the PSLF program followed a lawsuit and yearslong advocacy by state attorneys general and others urging ED to take robust action to fix the broken PSLF program. Following the resolution of the lawsuit, Attorney General Bonta has continued to advocate for changes to the PSLF program and today announced that the California Department of Justice will take part in the California Student Loan Debt Challenge to raise awareness about the PSLF program and help DOJ employees access loan forgiveness.

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California Privacy Protection Agency Unanimously Opposes the American Data Privacy and Protection Act

The new California privacy regulatory body, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA), has loudly voiced its opposition to the proposed federal American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA). 

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Attorney General Bonta Leads Coalition in Support of Federal Effort to Strengthen Access to Banking and Credit Services for Underserved Communities

OAKLAND – California Attorney General Rob Bonta today led a coalition of 19 attorneys general in a comment letter in support of a joint effort by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to revise and strengthen regulations under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The CRA is a critical civil rights law enacted by Congress to prevent racially discriminatory redlining in housing, and encourage banks to help meet the credit needs of all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods and individuals. In the comment letter, the coalition expresses its support for the federal agencies’ proposed rule, and urges them to go even further in implementing reforms to help tackle persistent racial and economic disparities exacerbated by COVID-19.

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Center for Microeconomic Data

Household Debt Rises to $16.15 Trillion Amid Growth in Housing and Non-Housing Balances

Total household debt rose $312 billion, or 2 percent, in the second quarter of 2022 to reach $16.15 billion, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. Mortgage balances—the largest component of household debt—climbed $207 billion and stood at $11.39 trillion as of June 30. Credit card balances saw their largest year-over-year percentage increase in more than twenty years, while aggregate limits on cards marked their largest increase in over ten years. Transitions into delinquency ticked up but remained very low compared to historical levels.

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CFPB’s Chopra Has Payments and Crypto In Focus

On July 27, CFPB Director Chopra was interviewed in multiple publications, here and here, about, among other topics, how the CFPB could seek to help mortgage borrowers strained by the Federal Reserve’s battle against inflation and how the agency is looking at cryptocurrency. Below are some of the more important updates from the interviews.

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Portfolios For Sale

 
$5,331,951 Medical
Capital Asset Management, Inc.

(317) 633-6633

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$13,101,701 Medical
Capital Asset Management, Inc.

(317) 633-6633

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$7,636,388 Auto Deficiencies
Capital Asset Management, Inc.

(317) 633-6633

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$500,000,000 Credit Cards
Capital Debt Solutions, LLC

(866) 305-5102

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$2,071,738.93 Other
Sea Side Management, LLC

(800) 917-7183

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Industry Events

 
DCS2022 – Debt Connection Symposium and Expo 2022

Red Rock Casino Resort Spa, 11011 W Charleston Boulevard
Las Vegas , Nevada
September 07 - 09 , 2022

Mark Naiman at 619-363-2993