The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama recently issued a decision in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) case highlighting the importance of clear and unambiguous communication in debt...more
In a recent speech at the National Consumer Law Center/National Association of Consumer Advocates Spring Training, Seth Frotman, General Counsel of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau), focused on medical...more
4/16/2024
/ Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Credit Reporting Agencies ,
Credit Reports ,
Debt Collection ,
Debt Collectors ,
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) ,
FDCPA ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Healthcare ,
Healthcare Costs ,
Medical Bills ,
Rent
In Scott v. Collecto, Inc., the plaintiff filed a complaint in state court alleging a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and common law negligence based on the defendant’s use of a letter vendor to...more
Virginia is currently one of only two states that does not allow class-action lawsuits in its courts. However, that could change soon as House Bill (HB) 418, originally introduced on January 10, 2024, seeks to create a...more
Join us for an enlightening episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, where we dissect the intricate world of debt collection, reflecting on the past year and forecasting future trends. This episode, hosted by Chris Willis,...more
We are pleased to share our annual review of regulatory and legal developments in the consumer financial services industry. With active federal and state legislatures, consumer financial services providers faced a challenging...more
2/1/2024
/ Automotive Loans ,
Banks ,
Class Action ,
Consumer Bankruptcy ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Debt Collection ,
Digital Assets ,
Fair Lending ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FinTech ,
Mortgages ,
Student Loans ,
Tribal Loans ,
Uniform Commercial Code (UCC)
On November 16, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) released its Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) Annual Report detailing the CFPB’s 2022 activities related to debt collection practices. This...more
11/21/2023
/ Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA) ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Credit Reporting Agencies ,
Debt ,
Debt Collection ,
Debt Collectors ,
FDCPA ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Medical Debt
Earlier this year, a district court for the Middle District of Florida upheld a jury award of $225,000 in punitive damages in a debt collection case finding the defendant’s conduct “reprehensible” based on the physical harm...more
11/9/2023
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Chapter 7 ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Creditors ,
Debt Buyers ,
Debt Collection ,
Debtors ,
Dischargeable Debts ,
Dish Network ,
Emotional Distress Damages ,
FCCPA ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Jury Awards ,
Punitive Damages ,
Unsecured Debt
The Connecticut Banking Commissioner (Commissioner), acting through the Consumer Credit Division of the Department of Banking (the Division), conducted an investigation into the Law Offices of David M. Katz, discovering that...more
On September 15, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey denied the defendant’s summary judgment motion holding instead that a bank levy against the plaintiff served as a basis for standing to assert a claim...more
9/26/2023
/ Article III ,
Credit Cards ,
Debt ,
Debt Collection ,
FDCPA ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Levy ,
New Jersey ,
Standing ,
Statutory Violations
On September 7, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan granted summary judgment in the defendant’s favor finding that the plaintiff had not suffered a concrete injury and therefore lacked standing to...more
On August 18, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York granted the plaintiff’s motion for class certification for alleged violations of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) relating...more
In our latest episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, Chris Willis and his colleagues Stefanie Jackman, Joe Reilly, and Jonathan Floyd discuss the CFPB’s advisory opinion related to collection of time-barred debt. The...more
On June 8, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered a consent order against medical debt collector Phoenix Financial Services for alleged violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)...more
Noting a rise in credit card delinquencies, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) released a new blog post analyzing civil judgments, the final recourse for creditors to collect on unsecured debt....more
On April 26, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) issued an advisory opinion reminding the industry that a debt collector who brings or threatens to bring a foreclosure action to collect a time-barred...more
Please join Troutman Pepper Partner Chris Willis and his colleagues Jonathan Floyd and Meagan Mihalko as they discuss recent trends in Article III standing in the federal courts. The trio examine why this is a big deal in...more
On March 15, Judge Eve M. Reilly of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, dismissed a class action complaint based solely on the allegation that a collection letter was sent by a third-party letter vendor....more
As discussed here, in August 2020, a district court for the Middle District of Tennessee held that a medical provider’s third-party billing servicer did not qualify as a debt collector under the Fair Debt Collections...more
As discussed here, on September 8, 2022, an en banc panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s decision that a debt collector’s outsourcing of its letter process to a third-party mail vendor...more
Federal courts across the country continue to divest themselves of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) cases following the Supreme Court’s salient Article III standing decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez. The...more
Creditors and debt collectors may rest assured that they are not violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) when sending debt-collection communications prior to any knowledge of a debtor’s bankruptcy filing. In...more
On December 1, the Connecticut Department of Banking issued a cease and desist order to the Law Offices of David M. Katz mandating the law firm cease conducting collection activities in the state without a license. The law...more
As we previously discussed here, in March 2022, the D.C. Council of the District of Columbia Committee of the Whole met in a full hearing, in part to hear amendments introduced to B24-0357, known as the Protecting Consumers...more
Please join Consumer Financial Services Partner Stefanie Jackman and her guests and colleagues James Trefil and Jonathan Floyd in the fourth and final episode of a special four-part series on recent developments at the...more