From a Washington Post column today by Katrina vanden Heuvel: Wells Fargo’s abuse of its customers — its employees opened some 2 million accounts and credit cards for depositors who may not have wanted them — has sparked deserved outrage. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D.-Mass.) charged Wells Fargo chair and chief executive John Stumpf with “gutless […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
Below are announcement from the Department of Justice's Consumer Protection Branch about its work in September: Dual Jamaican-U.S. Citizen Pleads Guilty in Connection with Jamaica-Based Lottery Fraud Scheme (9/28/16) Woman Sentenced for Impersonating FBI Agent in Connection with Lottery Fraud Scheme Based in Jamaica (9/27/16) Justice Department and Law Enforcement Partners Announce Civil and Criminal […]
More Wells Fargo news this week: Wells Fargo will pay $4.1 million to settle Justice Department charges that it seized 413 cars owned by service members without a court order, a violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. The illegal repossessions took place from 2008 to 2015. The relief includes payments to each affected service […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Friday sued the credit repair company Prime Marketing Holdings, LLC, which the CFPB alleges charged consumers a series of illegal advance fees and misrepresented the cost and effectiveness of its services. The CFPB is seeking to halt the company’s harmful conduct and to obtain relief for consumers, including refunds […]
The Federal Trade Commission issued a few press releases last Thursday and Friday that may be of interest: FTC Wins Summary Judgment against Marketers of Supplement That Claimed To Prevent or Reverse Gray Hair (Sept. 23) FTC Action: Court Bans Mortgage Relief Scammers from Debt Relief Business (Sept. 22) FTC Charges Fake Prize Scheme Operators […]
The Washington Post had this report on yesterday's congressional hearing: The CEO of Wells Fargo faced accusations of fraud and calls for his resignation Tuesday from harshly critical senators at a hearing over allegations that bank employees opened millions of accounts customers didn’t know about to meet sales quotas. Members of the Senate Banking Committee […]
The Wall Street Journal reports: Prepaid cards, which started out as simple gift cards from retail stores, have morphed into popular financial-management tools with functions that rival bank checking accounts. Now regulators are playing catch-up, with plans to roll out a rule this fall that would bring oversight of the sector closer to regulations covering […]
Wells Fargo, the country’s largest retail bank and an institution once thought above the fray of financial crisis era scandals, has been under fire this week after acknowledging it had fired 5,300 employees over the past five years for opening as many as 2 million sham accounts customers didn’t ask for. The San Francisco-based bank, which […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has this blog post. The post notes that "over 90 percent of African-American and 72 percent of Latino students leave college with student loan debt, compared to 66 percent of white students and 51 percent of Asian-American students."
From the New York Times: Buyout firms are at the forefront of Capitol Hill. They have successfully promoted legislation to roll back regulatory disclosures required under the postcrisis Dodd-Frank legislation, even as they settle cases over misleading investors. If the bill is enacted, however, there is a risk of repercussions. The House passed the plan […]