Here. Excerpt:
* * * Congressmen Steve Womack (AR-3) and Tom Graves (GA-14) wrote an amendment to an appropriations bill that ignores all the evidence in the [2015 CFPB Arbitration] report. Unsurprisingly, they both have received consistent financial support for years from banking lobbyists. Adopted by voice vote within a matter of minutes, the amendment revoked CFPB’s authority to create regulations for arbitration clauses until an entirely new study is conducted.
CFPB would be barred from restoring American consumers’ essential right to bring their disputes to court until they essentially repeat the study they just did. * * *
Do you have the number for this bill so I can get a copy of the full bill? I want to immediately contact some people and I have advocate teams that will distrubute petitions and I will put together a true history of arbitration in consumer accounts and the years of it being a distater that impacted millions of people. Finally, in 2009 after an AG lawsuit and Congress jumping on it that week they were able to halt the arbration for good and I know several experts that were a part of this. Many of the AG Cases along with the CFPB with several banks and third parties going on now the widescale fraud and consumer damages from the last aritration is still going on and we are still in the clean up phase from that. There are numerous cases in courts today because of them selling the old arb accounts. There are a lot of factors that would need to happen prior to even think about changing it which obviously Congressmen Steve Womak and Tom Graves do not understand that needs to happen for a change like this and commmunications to start building the new systems, processes, departments, training, data files, batch scrubs, vendor and third party new contracts and relationships and set them up on it all. New audit and compliance policies and procedures along with changes to policies and procedures in banks and third parties. This to even do right best case scenario 12 months and I would say you can guarntee the lawsuits, class actions, AG actions, volumes of CFPB complaints, FTC, OCC start flying around and with good reason. All of the announcements last week with my CFPB and OCC plus 47 AG’s actions, awards and consent orders finally start getting this area industrywide back on track. It is more than obvious the multi-year over 700 page report which was just completed and it one of the best quality reports I have seen out of a regulatory agency these Congressmen either never read or do not understand. My self along with several top experienced consumer attorneys, experts in all of the areas and some fraud examiners specializing in these areas are more than willing to take the time to explain it and answer any questions and eliminate the misguided perceptions in the statements by Steve Womak and Tom Graves. As we all personally lived through the trainwreck of the last time this was done. With so many accomplishments last week with the CFPB and OCC with the orders and complete needed reform in this exact industry and portfolios that have been 5 years of hard work by so many and now solutions going forward and the victims being taking care of why would we want to go back ten years and now even worse due to there is not the proper infastrure. A couple of these experts are putting together numerous petitions now for those with an large outreach to consumers, votors, lawmakers and major media to hopefully educate the public and lawmakers on the facts, data, people, damage etc. Could I get the number of the bill or a copy? Linda Almonte