If you’re still opted-in to overdraft “protection” — which protects you by slapping huge fees on every purchase you make beyond the available funds in your account — you should probably opt out, as the costs associated with this lucrative system are on the rise. [More]
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Despite Regulations, Survivors Face Foreclosures After Reverse Mortgage Borrower’s Death
By 3.27.14
There are a number of reasons someone might take out a reverse mortgage: to pay for prescriptions or medial care, to subsidize their daily living expenses or even to settle their fear of becoming a burden to their family. But the product that was designed to keep elderly consumers in their homes is now wreaking havoc on their surviving loved ones. [More]
The Consumerist 101 Guide To Understanding Your Financial Regulators
By 3.22.14
Washington, D.C., might as well be called Acronym City. It feels like there are a zillion different, discrete agencies, organizations, bureaus, boards, and commissions within the federal government, each with its own graceless three-, four-, or five-initial moniker, forming the tangled web of a bureaucracy that regulates… well, almost everything. So what are the key regulatory agencies, anyway? Who oversees what, and who do they report to, and how does it all work? [More]
Another Payday Loan Biggie Being Probed By CFPB
By 3.14.14
Days after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau revealed that is currently investigating the lead-generating practices of MoneyMutual — the company with the Montel Williams ads that puts borrowers in touch with payday lenders — comes news that the Bureau is taking a peek under the hood of World Acceptance Corp. (aka World Finance), one of the country’s largest high-interest installment lenders. [More]
Feds Investigating That MoneyMutual Company With The Montel Williams Ads
By 3.13.14
If you’ve caught any daytime or late-night TV in the last few years, you’ve probably noticed talk show host Montel Williams shilling for a service called MoneyMutual that connects needy borrowers with Payday lenders. Newly released documents show that the company’s lead-generation process is under investigation by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. [More]
CFPB To Credit Card Companies: Put Free Credit Scores On Monthly Statements
By 2.27.14
Is a free credit score coming to a credit card statement near you? It is if major companies listen to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s call to ensure all Americans have free and easily accessible access to their credit scores. [More]
9 Federal Laws That Companies Can Skirt By Using Forced Arbitration
By 2.27.14
There are numerous federal laws that explicitly give wronged consumers the right to file a lawsuit against the company that harmed them, but all those statutory rights are being taken away by companies that insert arbitration clauses into their terms of service. [More]
CFPB Sues ITT Tech For Allegedly Exploiting Students, Pushing Predatory Loans
By 2.26.14
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a federal lawsuit against a well-known for-profit college chain, alleging the company exploited its students and pushed them into high-cost private student loans that were likely to end in default. [More]
Big Banks Don’t Want To Be Transparent About Checking Fees If Little Banks Don’t Have To Be
By 2.21.14
If we were to play a word-association game with the nation’s largest banks, we’re sure that terms like “fair” and “equitable” would be right on the tip of peoples’ tongues. And because big banks always play fair with everyone else, they are asking that their checking-account fees not be put under the regulatory microscope if smaller banks’ fees aren’t going be subject to the same scrutiny. [More]
Complaints Surging, Modifications Decreasing As Loan Servicers Snap Up Mortgages From Banks
By 2.20.14
It’s been a rough few years for homeowners. Since the collapse of a housing bubble in 2008, mortgage-holders have been yanked around every which way by the banks that own their loans. Mega-banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America have earned their reputations for being impenetrable, hostile bureaucracies to their customers. The industry has done everything from issuing loans that borrowers had no chance of repaying, to “losing” paperwork that distressed borrowers endlessly resend, to foreclosing on borrowers who have actually paid, and even discriminating based on race and gender. [More]
Now The Feds Are Investigating Operators Of Everest, WyoTech & Heald Colleges
By 2.6.14
Last fall, the state of California sued Corinthian Colleges, Inc. — better known as the company that operates a number of the for-profit colleges whose ads dominate daytime TV commercial breaks — over allegations that it lied to students about job-placement stats and to investors about its graduates’ success rate. Yesterday, CCI revealed that it’s also being investigated by two federal agencies and can’t open any new locations for the time-being. [More]
CFPB Alleges Mortgage Insurer Operated 15-Year-Long Kickback Scheme
By 1.29.14
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has begun proceedings against PHH Corporation for its involvement in a 15-year-long mortgage insurance kickback scheme that collected hundreds of millions of dollars from homeowners. [More]
CFPB Wants To Supervise International Money Transfer Operations
By 1.23.14
In Oct. 2013, new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau kicked in that provided new disclosures and protections for people making international money transfers. While the CFPB has the ability to check in with the nation’s largest banks and credit unions to make sure they are complying with these new rules, it doesn’t yet have that authority for non-bank companies that offer this service. [More]
CFPB Fines Lender For Hiding Mortgage Kickbacks As Rent Payments
By 1.17.14
The CFPB has ordered a Missouri mortgage lender to pay over $81,000 related to an illegal kickback scheme. [More]
Capital One Is The Most Complained-About Credit Card Company
By 1.15.14
Since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened its credit card complaint portal in Sept. 2010, more than 25,000 complaints have been filed with the CFPB. And while the 10 largest credit card issuers account for 93% of all those complaints, one company is responsible for more than 1-in-5 of all complaints filed with the Bureau: Capital One. [More]
New Rule Requiring Banks To Make Sure Borrowers Can Actually Repay Mortgages Goes Into Effect This Week
By 1.7.14
Want a mortgage? Go for it! But thanks to new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the banks are going to need some proof first that you can actually, you know, pay it back. [More]
American Express To Refund $59.5 Million Over Bad Billing & Deceptive Marketing
By 12.26.13
About 15 months after getting slapped around by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the tune of $112.5 million for a variety of bad business practices, the CFPB put another huge lump of coal in American Express’s Christmas stocking, spanking the credit card company for nearly $70 million, including $59.5 million in refunds to customers. [More]
