Senate Democrats question CFPB’s lack of restitution in VA ad settlements

Federal Issues U.S. Senate Mortgages CFPB Department of Veterans Affairs UDAAP

On October 1, sixteen Democratic Senators sent a letter to CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger, expressing concern over the Bureau’s failure to obtain restitution in eight recent settlements with mortgage lenders for allegedly mailing consumers advertisements for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) mortgages that contained misleading statements or lacked required disclosures (covered by InfoBytes here). The letter states that while the Bureau collected approximately $2.8 million in civil penalties over the eight settlements, it did not require any company to pay restitution to harmed consumers. The letter argues that the failure to obtain restitution in these matters was a departure from the Bureau’s practice in previous cases where it obtained restitution for consumers who enrolled in a service connected to allegedly deceptive advertising. The letter notes that, if the Bureau was not able to determine a restitution amount based on the “millions of advertisements” that were sent, it had the authority to seek disgorgement as a remedy. The letter requests the Bureau elaborate on, among other things, its decision not to seek restitution for consumers in the cited actions and to provide information about the standard the Bureau uses to determine when to provide restitution.