A&B Abstract:
On July 19, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sued a Utah-based fintech company and several of its affiliates (the Company) for allegedly deceiving consumers and obscuring the terms of its financing agreements in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), and other federal regulations.
The Allegations
The Company provides lease-to-own financing, through which consumers finance purchases from merchants though the Company’s “Purchase Agreements,” and, in turn, make payments back to the Company. The Company allegedly provides the merchants with advertisement materials and involves them heavily in the application and contracting process.
According to the CFPB, the Company’s advertising and servicing efforts were deceptive. As part of its marketing efforts, the Company allegedly provided its merchant partners with display advertisements that featured the phrase “100 Day Cash Payoff” without further explanation of the terms of financing. Consumers who received financing from the Company reasonably believed they had entered into a 100-day financing agreement, where their automatically scheduled payments would fulfill their payment obligations after 100 days. But, in fact, consumers had to affirmatively exercise the 100-day early payment discount option, and if they missed the deadline pay significantly more than the “cash” price under the terms of their Purchase Agreements. Additionally, as part of its servicing efforts, the Company allegedly threatened consumers with collection actions that it does not bring.
From the CFPB’s perspective, these efforts constituted deceptive acts or practices under the CFPA. The marketing efforts were deceptive because the Company’s use of this featured phrase was a (1) representation or practice; (2) material to consumers’ decision to take out financing; and (3) was likely to mislead reasonable consumers as to the nature of the financing agreement, while the servicing efforts were deceptive because the Company threatened actions it does not take.
The CFPB also alleges that the Company’s application and contracting process was abusive. The Company allegedly designed and implemented a Merchant Portal application and contracting process that frequently resulted in merchants signing and submitting Purchase Agreements on behalf of consumers without the consumer’s prior review of the agreement. Further, the Company relied on merchants to explain the terms of the agreements but provided them with no written guidance for doing so. And as part of the process, the Company required consumers to pay a processing fee before receiving a summary of the terms of their agreement and before seeing or signing their final agreement.
Altogether, the CFPB views these acts and practices as abusive under the CFPA because they “materially interfered” with consumers’ ability to understand the terms and conditions of the Purchase Agreements.
Lastly, the CFPB alleges that the Company’s Purchase Agreements did not meet TILA and its implementing Regulation Z’s disclosure requirements. On this point, the CFPB is careful in alleging that the Purchase Agreements are not typical rent-to-own agreements to which TILA does not apply. Rather, the CFPB alleges they are actually “credit sales” because the agreements permitted consumers to terminate only at the conclusion of an automatically renewing 60-day term, and only if consumers were current on their payment obligations through the end of that term.
Takeaways
This suit serves as a good reminder to every lending program to: (i) have counsel carefully vet all advertisements to ensure that they are not inadvertently deceptive or misleading to consumers; (ii) ensure that the mechanics of its application process facilitate rather than interfere with consumers’ ability to understand the terms and conditions; and (iii) consult with counsel regarding whether their agreements are subject to TILA and Regulation Z’s disclosure requirements.
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