Archive

December 28, 2015

The CFPB filed a proposed consent order in the Northern District of Georgia that would require Frederick J. Hanna & Associates and its principal partners to pay $3.1 million to the Bureau’s Civil Penalty Fund and bar them from illegal debt-collection practices. The CFPB’s complaint charges the firm with intimidating consumers with deceptive court filings and introducing faulty or unsubstantiated evidence in court. CFPB

December 22, 2015

Rome Finance Company, Inc. will pay compensation exceeding $3.7 million to settle claims that it engaged in predatory lending practices targeted at men and women in the military. Rome Finance, which did business most recently as Colfax Capital Corporation and Culver Capital, LLC, financed consumer debts exclusively to service members, typically for computers, gaming systems, and other goods and services from retailers online or at malls near military bases. Over 550 New York State service members benefited directly from this settlement and ancillary resolutions. NY

December 22, 2015

Participants in an alleged credit card “laundering” scheme have agreed to settle FTC charges that they illegally helped provide access to payment networks, thereby enabling scammers to place bogus charges on consumers’ credit cards. According to the FTC’s complaint, PayBasics, Todd Hatch and Jimmy Shin helped the defendants behind the Tax Club fraud to open and maintain merchant accounts used to process credit card payments for sales made by a number of different third-party scammers. The defendants in the Tax Club work at home scheme settled FTC charges last year. FTC

December 18, 2015

Virginia reached a settlement with MoneyKey, Inc., a Delaware-based online consumer lender, for alleged violations of the state’s consumer finance statutes and the Virginia Consumer Protection Act. MoneyKey has agreed to provide approximately $4 million to over 5,000 Virginia customers to resolve allegations that it imposed illegal charges on borrowers who received open-ended credit loans. VA

December 18, 2015

J.P. Morgan Chase Bank agreed to pay $100 million -- $40 million as a penalty and $60 million in disgorgement -- to settle allegations that it failed to disclose its preferences for investing client funds in certain investment vehicles.  CFTC

December 17, 2015

The CFPB ordered CarHop, one of the country’s biggest “buy-here, pay-here” auto dealers, and its affiliated financing company, Universal Acceptance Corporation, to cease their illegal activities and pay a $6,465,000 civil penalty for providing damaging, inaccurate consumer information to credit reporting companies. CFPB

December 16, 2015

The CFPB ordered EZCORP, Inc., a small-dollar lender, to refund $7.5 million to 93,000 consumers, pay $3 million in penalties, and stop collection of remaining payday and installment loan debts owed by roughly 130,000 consumers for illegal debt collection practices. The CFPB found that EZCORP collected debts from consumers through unlawful in-person collection visits at their homes or workplaces, risked exposing consumers’ debts to third parties, falsely threatened consumers with litigation for non-payment of debts, and unfairly made multiple electronic withdrawal attempts from consumer accounts, causing mounting bank fees. CFPB

December 10, 2015

Thomas Gillons, of Napa County, California, was ordered to pay a $1 million civil penalty and $994,068 in restitution on charges of fraud and misappropriation.  CFTC

December 7, 2015

The CFPB filed a proposed consent order that would require EOS CCA, a Massachusetts debt collection firm, to overhaul its debt collection practices, refund at least $743,000 to consumers, and pay a $1.85 million civil money penalty for (1) reporting and collecting on old cellphone debt that consumers disputed and EOS CCA did not verify and (2) providing inaccurate information to credit reporting companies about the debt and failing to correct reported information that it had determined was inaccurate. CFPB

December 7, 2015

The CFTC settled charges against Total Gas & Power North America, Inc. and Therese Tran, accusing them of manipulation of natural gas monthly index settlement prices at four major trading hubs in Texas and elsewhere in the southwest during monthly settlement periods known as “bid-week;" the defendants will pay a $3.6 million penalty. CFTC