Education Secretary and champion of for-profit colleges Betsy DeVos is once again siding with this controversial industry and against students who were defrauded by schools that tricked them into paying top dollar for a bottom-dollar education. [More]
loans
Federal Disaster Loans Could Be Difficult To Obtain After Harvey
By 8.31.17
Around 80% of homeowners in areas devastated by flooding from Hurricane Harvey don’t have insurance policies that will cover much of the damage done to their properties. Federal disaster loans offer victims one pathway toward recovery, but obtaining that financing could be a difficult, drawn-out endeavor. [More]
Zillow Admits It’s In Hot Water With Regulators Over Lender Advertising
By 8.17.17
Real estate listings site Zillow — home of the controversial “Zestimate” — is in the regulatory hot seat over an advertising program for mortgage lenders that may violate federal anti-kickback law. [More]
Wells Fargo Customers Sue Bank Over Alleged Insurance Scheme That Led To Vehicle Repossessions
By 7.31.17
After a recent report alleged that Wells Fargo had charged its auto loan customers for unnecessary and unwanted insurance — resulting in 25,000 repossessed vehicles — the bank now faces a lawsuit from one of those borrowers. [More]
$5 Billion In Private Student Loans Could Be Wiped Away Because Of Shoddy Record Keeping
By 7.18.17
Wiping away private student loans is a difficult, almost impossible task, for borrowers. But some debtors are finding their tabs zeroed out as the result of a long-running legal battle between former students and a group of student loan creditors attempting to collect on defaulted loans. In the end, the courts could forgive up to $5 billion in private education loans if the creditor continues to fail in providing critical paperwork. [More]
Feds Shut Down Loan Application Sites That Illegally Sold Personal Data
By 7.6.17
There are a lot of people who need to borrow money quickly but don’t know where to go for a loan. So they go online, where there are plenty of shady operators promising to connect loan applicants with lenders. What the borrower doesn’t know is that these lead generators may also be selling their personal information with third parties who have nothing to do with that loan. [More]
77-Year-Old Insurance Agent Pleads Guilty To Conning Customers Out Of $8.2M
By 4.27.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
A Pennsylvania insurance agent could spend more than five years in prison after pleading guilty for his part in a scheme that swindled millions of dollars from customers. [More]
Complaints About Student Loan Servicing Increase In Nearly Every State
By 4.25.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Newly released complaint data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau appears to support recent claims by nearly two-dozen states that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos may be making a big mistake by rolling back protections for student loan borrowers. [More]
Education Secretary DeVos Withdraws Protections For Student Loan Borrowers
By 4.11.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Relatively new federal guidelines intended to to make the student loan repayment process more accurate and transparent have all been rescinded today by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos — a move that consumer advocates says removes accountability for debt collectors and loan servicers. [More]
Santander Bank To Pay $26M Over Subprime Auto Loan Practices
By 3.29.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
One of the nation’s largest providers of automobile financing, Santander Bank, has agreed to pay $26 million to end a two-state investigation into the financial institution’s alleged violation of state consumer protection laws related to its auto loan underwriting practices. [More]
Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds
By 1.27.17
Here are nine of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness. [More]
Feds Will Forgive $30M In Federal Loans For Students Of Defunct American Career Institute
By 1.13.17
Under the “Borrower Defense” program, a student’s federal education loans can be forgiven if they can prove their college used deceptive practices to convince them to enroll. The Department of Education confirmed today that this program will be used to forgive $30 million in federal student loans for thousands of former students from the defunct American Career Institute. [More]
Student Loan Servicing Issues Contribute To Older Borrowers’ Defaults
By 1.5.17
In 2015, nearly 40% of all federal student loan borrowers over the age of 65 were in default, thanks in part to issues they faced when it came to the servicing of their debts, including problems enrolling in income-driven repayment plans and accessing protections as co-signers. [More]
Did Morgan Stanley Advisors Push Customers Into Unneeded Loans?
By 10.3.16
If we’ve learned anything from Wells Fargo’s recent fake account fiasco, it’s that high-pressure sales tactics can lead to unethical and sometimes illegal behavior. But did similar sales quotas and incentives lead Morgan Stanley employees to push customers into unneeded loans? That’s a question regulators in Massachusetts aim to answer. [More]
Feds Fine TitleMax, TitleBucks Parent Company $9M Over Alleged Illegal Loan Practices
By 9.27.16
The terms and conditions for short-term, high-cost loans can often be confusing, making it difficult to decipher just how much a borrower will spend to repay an initial loan. That was apparently the case for TMX Finance, the company behind TitleMax, as federal regulators fined the company $9 million for allegedly luring consumers into costly loan renewals by presenting them with misleading information about monthly plans. [More]
Nearly 200 Former ITT Students Refusing To Pay Student Loans, But Is That A Good Idea?
By 9.14.16
The abrupt closure of ITT Educational Services’ 130 ITT Tech campuses left tens of thousand of current students sitting in limbo with regard to both their education and all the student loan debt they had amassed. Likewise, a number of recent ITT grads are holding degrees they believe are now worthless. A group of nearly 200 stranded ITT students and graduates are the latest to join the ongoing “debt strike” started after the collapse of Corinthian Colleges.
[More]
1-in-5 Auto Title Loans Lead To Vehicle Seizure
By 5.18.16
When seeking an infusion of cash to make ends meet, consumers may turn to payday loans, cash advance loans, or auto title loans. While each of these short-term, high-interest loans pose a financial risk to borrowers, only one has the ability to take away what is often a person’s largest asset: their vehicle. And, according to a new report, one-in-five consumers who take out a single-payment auto title loan have their car seized by lenders. [More]
Feds Investigating Lending Club’s Loan Sales
By 5.17.16
A week after Lending Club’s CEO abruptly left the company, the peer-to-peer lending service disclosed that it had received a federal grand jury subpoena and warned investors it could soon face legal action. [More]
