Archive

July 28, 2022

U.S. Bank will pay a $37.5 million penalty and is required to make harmed customers whole for illegally accessing their credit reports and opening new, unauthorized accounts in these customers’ names. The bank’s actions violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Truth in Lending Act, and the Truth in Savings Act. The bank pressured its employees to hit certain sales goals and implemented an incentive-compensation program that financially rewarded employees for selling bank products. As a result, the bank’s customers held unwanted accounts, had negative effects on their credit profiles, and lost control over their personally identifiable information—not to mention the time-consuming hassle of closing unauthorized accounts and resolving other consequences stemming from this practice.  CFPB

July 27, 2022

Three registered broker-dealers have been ordered to pay civil penalties based on SEC findings that each had deficiencies in its programs to prevent customer identity theft, in violation of the SEC’s Identity Theft Red Flags Rule, or Regulation S-ID.  J.P. Morgan Securities LLC will pay $1.2 million, UBS Financial Services Inc. will pay $925,000, and TradeStation Securities, Inc. will pay $425,000.  The SEC found that the broker-dealers’ cybersecurity policies failed to detect identity theft red flags in connection with customer accounts or to incorporate those red flags into their programs, and that the firms failed to adequately train staff, failed to review and update the policies as required, did not include appropriate board oversight, and failed to oversee service provider arrangements.  SEC

July 27, 2022

Trident Mortgage Company entered into a settlement agreement with federal and state agencies to resolve allegations that the non-bank lender intentionally discriminated against minority loan applicants by engaging in a pattern or practice of lending discrimination through “redlining.”  Trident agreed to invest over $20 million to increase credit opportunities in neighborhoods of color in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, and pay a $4 million penalty to the CFPB. DOJ; CFPB; PA; NJ; DE

July 26, 2022

Hyundai Capital America will pay $19 million for their failures to provide accurate information to nationwide credit reporting companies, tarnishing the records of more than 2.2 million consumer accounts through no fault of their own. Between January 2016 and March 2020, because of their outdated systems and processes, Hyundai violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act and failed to: report complete and accurate loan and lease account information; provide date of first delinquency information when required; modify or delete information when required; have reasonable identity theft procedures; and have reasonable accuracy and integrity policies and procedures. CFPB

July 22, 2022

Vanderpoel family members Neal J. II, Eileen, Ryan, and Neal J. IV will pay $1.88 million in penalties, disgorge their ill-gotten gains, and are barred from performing any loan modification, debt adjustment, or mortgage compliance in New Jersey because of their predatory mortgage adjustment services targeting distressed homeowners. The family violated New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act and the Debt Adjustment Act, selling worthless loan modification and other adjustment services to borrowers, and charged excessive upfront fees. The entities used in furtherance of the fraud—Financial Services of America, Financial Processing Services, LLC, Tri-State Financial Relief, LLC, and Mortgage Help and Loan Audits of America, LLC—were also shut down. NJ OAG

July 18, 2022

Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company has agreed to pay $50 million to settle charges of providing statements to 1.4 million variable annuity investors, which included public school teachers and staff, that failed to list all fees paid during the period.  In addition to the monetary settlement, Equitable has agreed to cease and desist from future violations and revise how it presents fee information.  SEC

July 15, 2022

A number of California- and Colorado-based people and their affiliated entities have been ordered to pay over $29 million in total in order to resolve multiple charges of violating CFTC regulations.  A federal judge had found California-based John D. Black, his associates Christopher Mancuso and Joseph Tufo, and his entities Financial Tree, Financial Solution Group, and New Money Advisors—as well as Colorado-based John P. Glenn and his law firm—liable for solicitation fraud in connection with binary options and forex transactions, registration violations, and other charges.  CFTC

July 14, 2022

Bank of America will pay fines totaling $225 million to following federal investigation into its administration of state unemployment insurance and other public benefit programs, which it provided pursuant to contracts with 12 states to deliver benefits through prepaid debit cards. When demand for benefits surged with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank adopted automated fraud detection practices which it the government alleged it knew or should have known would lead to its incorrectly freezing or blocking accounts. The CFPB and OCC found that the Bank imposed unreasonable barriers that made it difficult for people to report fraudulent use of their cards or unfreeze their prepaid debit cards, and failed to establish adequate operational processes, risk management, and internal controls. In addition to the penalties – $100 million imposed by the CFPB and $125 million imposed by the OCC – the Bank was ordered to provide redress to consumers and take corrective action with respect to its oversight over the programs.  CFPB; OCC

July 5, 2022

BNP Paribas has been ordered to pay a $6 million civil monetary penalty for its failure to correctly swap transactions as required by the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations.  According to the CFTC, BNPP failed to make more than 300,000 reports involving more than 6,000 swap transactions by U.S. persons incorrectly classified as non-U.S. persons.  Additionally, BNPP incorrectly reported thousands of bunched trades as new trades, and incorrectly reported approximately 3,000 commodity swaps as equity trades.  CFTC

June 30, 2022

Interactive Brokers LLC has been ordered to pay over $1 million in disgorgement and civil monetary penalty for its failure to supervise employees’ handling of exchange fees charged to customers.  By failing to ensure that its employees accurately assessed fees, Interactive Brokers overcharged its customers over $710,000.  CFTC