Court enters nearly $90 million default judgment against student debt-relief defendants

Courts CFPB Enforcement Telemarketing Sales Rule Civil Money Penalties Debt Relief Student Lending State Attorney General CFPA UDAAP Deceptive

On December 15, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California entered a default judgment and order against two companies (collectively, “default defendants”) for their role in a student loan debt-relief operation. As previously covered by InfoBytes, the CFPB, along with the Minnesota and North Carolina attorneys general, and the Los Angeles City Attorney (together, the “states”), announced an action against the student loan debt relief operation (defendants) for allegedly deceiving thousands of student-loan borrowers and charging more than $71 million in unlawful advance fees. The complaint alleged that the defendants violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and various state laws by charging and collecting improper advance fees from student loan borrowers prior to providing assistance and receiving payments on the adjusted loans. In addition, the complaint asserts that the defendants engaged in deceptive practices by misrepresenting (i) the purpose and application of fees they charged; (ii) their ability to obtain loan forgiveness; and (iii) their ability to actually lower borrowers’ monthly payments. In September, the court entered final judgments against four of the defendants (covered by InfoBytes here), which included a suspended monetary judgment of over $95 million due to the defendants’ inability to pay.

The new default order enters a $55 million judgment against one of the defaulting defendants and requires the defaulting defendant to pay a $30 million civil money penalty with $50,000 of that sum going directly to each of the states. Additionally, the court entered a judgment of over $165,000 to the other defaulting defendant and total civil money penalties of $2.5 million, with $10,000 going to each of the states directly and an additional $1.25 million to California. The judgment also, among other things, permanently bans the defaulting defendants from telemarketing any consumer financial product or service and from selling any debt-relief service.