Federal consumer watchdog plays down changes to its student protection unit From the Washington Post: A federal consumer watchdog Thursday played down controversial plans to fold the student arm of the agency into another office, following the leak of a memo outlining the move. Mulvaney sent a memo Wednesday informing staffers of a reorganization that […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
American Banker reports that the "White House is dragging out the nomination of a permanent director for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to ensure that acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney calls the shots at the agency until the end of the year or longer." President Trump is expected to name J. Mark McWatters, the chairman […]
Eight of the 10 financial institutions that are the subjects of the most complaints in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau public database contributed to acting Director Mick Mulvaney while he was in Congress, according to an analysis published today by Public Citizen. Since 2012, the CFPB has maintained the publicly available database of consumer complaints […]
The Wall Street Journal reports: "Wells Fargo said Friday it reached a $480 million preliminary settlement agreement in a securities fraud class-action suit. The settlement comes at a difficult time for Wells Fargo, which is dealing with multiple investigations and settlements. The problems kicked off in September 2016 when its sales-practices scandal erupted, and the […]
The Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration today jointly issued 13 warning letters to manufacturers, distributors, and retailers for selling e-liquids used in e-cigarettes with labeling and/or advertising that resemble kid-friendly food products, such as juice boxes, candies, or cookies, some of them with cartoon-like imagery. Several of the companies receiving warning […]
In addition to taking the case that Brian blogged about below, the Supreme Court this morning granted a petition in Lamps Plus Inc. v. Varella, which raises the question presented: Whether the Federal Arbitration Act forecloses a state-law interpretation of an arbitration agreement that would authorize class arbitration based solely on general language commonly used […]
The Ars Technica blog reports that "Verizon is forcing users of Yahoo services to waive their class-action rights and agree to resolve disputes through arbitration. Yahoo users who don't agree to the new terms will be cut off from the services, though Verizon hasn't said exactly when the cutoff date is." The blog post is […]
The Wall Street Journal reports that the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has floated the idea of not enforcing lending rules for poor people based on the location of a bank’s physical branches. People familiar with the matter said the OCC privately sought other regulators’ input on eliminating the concept of geographic […]
The Federal Trade Commission has charged the LendingClub Corporation with falsely promising consumers that they would receive a loan with “no hidden fees,” when, in actuality, the company deducted hundreds or even thousands of dollars in hidden up-front fees from the loans. The FTC’s complaint alleges that Lending Club recognized that its hidden fee was a […]
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have fined Wells Fargo $1 billion for forcing customers into car insurance and charging mortgage borrowers unfair fees. CNN Money has the story, here.