In June 2015, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued several consent orders dealing with misconduct by large banks. Two were new, against Bank of American and Wells Fargo for newly discovered misconduct. The remainder dealt with the failure by large banks, including Wells Fargo to abide by the terms of existing Consent… Read more
Ashlee Kieler at Consumerist writes about the dilemma of being forced to pay a debt that is not owed: Imagine receiving a phone call that 25% of your wages are going to be garnished because of a credit card account opened 14 years earlier that was never paid off. Making things worse, you know you… Read more
A new National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) report argues that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) should use its power to ban the collection of statute-barred debts: In light of the inherent unfairness, deceptiveness and abusiveness that occur when collectors pursue time-barred debt and the inability of disclosures to adequately protect consumers, the CFPB should… Read more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s page “ask CFPB” on debt collection, is a useful resource for consumers. It also provides some insights into the kind of debt collection problems consumers face. Among the top ten most-viewed questions on the CFPB’s site are: Read more
“Pennies on the dollar” is perhaps an overstatement. According to Paragraph 4 of a January 6, 2015 settlement agreement reached with the New York State Attorney General, Encore Capital Group, Inc. (which is publicly traded and is the parent of junk debt buyer Midland Funding, LLC) “paid approximately $1.2 billion to acquire portfolios, primarily charged-off… Read more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has to make an important decision soon, about arbitration clauses. Forced arbitration clauses (or “mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clauses” as they are sometimes called) appear in many standard consumer contracts. If you have a Paypal account, a mobile phone contract, a credit card, an employment contract, or if you have purchased… Read more
It is well known that some debt collection attorneys mass produce lawsuits and do so without properly reviewing their own documents. As one former collection attorney, quoted in Jake Halpern’s Bad Paper, put it “[t]here’s no way that you could effectively double-check all that stuff.” Despite slipshod review of the case files, the collection attorney’s… Read more
Ocwen, which has an outsized presence in Maryland and which is the largest subprime mortgage servicer in the United States, has settled allegations by New York’s financial regulator, but still faces trouble in California. It is also in serious financial trouble: its stock closed at $7.71 on January 21, which is down from $16.01 a… Read more
Ocwen is a mortgage servicing company: it’s paid to collect payments from consumers in Maryland and elsewhere, deal with escrow accounts, and sort out any problems that arise. Servicers do not necessarily own the mortgage itself, only the “servicing rights”. The CFPB’s guidance for examining mortgage servicers explains “[t]his is because some entities have expertise… Read more
Maryland debt relief programs won’t do or mean anything without truly understanding the intersectional issues that arise when speaking about debt disparity in the state. Policymakers in Maryland and elsewhere should read “The Debt Disparity: What Drives Credit Card Debt in America”, released in the Fall of 2014 by the think tank Demos (www.demos.org). Demos… Read more