InfoBytes Blog
CFPB defines abusive conduct under the CFPA
On April 3, the CFPB issued a policy statement containing an “analytical framework” for identifying abusive conduct prohibited under the Consumer Financial Protection Act. The Bureau broadly defines abusive conduct as anything that obscures, withholds, de-emphasizes, renders confusing, or hides information about the important features of a product or service. The policy statement, which is intended to clarify Congress’s statutory definition of abusive practices, serves as the Bureau’s “first formal issuance” summarizing more than a decade’s worth of precedent on abusiveness.
Specifically, the policy statement highlights two categories of abusive prohibitions: (i) obscuring critical features that could materially interfere with or impede a consumer’s ability to understand terms or conditions that may prompt a consumer to reconsider signing up for certain products or services (e.g., burying or overshadowing important disclosures, filling disclosures with complex jargon, omitting material terms and conditions, physically preventing consumers from viewing notices, or engaging in digital interference through the use of “dark patterns” aimed at “making the terms and conditions materially less accessible or salient”); and (ii) leveraging a company’s knowledge or market power to take unreasonable advantage of a consumer relating to: gaps in understanding; unequal bargaining power; and consumer reliance (e.g., causing a consumer to face a range of potential harms, including monetary and non-monetary costs, taking advantage of a consumer’s lack of understanding as it relates to whether a debt is legally enforceable or when fees will be assessed, or preventing a consumer from switching service providers).
Additionally, the Bureau notes that in order to establish liability, the agency would not be required to show that “substantial injury” occurred—it only needs to show that a practice is considered “harmful or distortionary to the proper functioning of the market.”
Abusive acts or practices will focus on actions, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra explained in prepared remarks at the University of California Irvine Law School, whereas deception claims are more concerned with whether a company’s communications create a misleading net impression. “Congress prohibited companies from leveraging unequal bargaining power, and that includes consumer reporting companies, servicers, and debt collectors who use the fact that their customers are captive to force people into less advantageous deals, extract excess profits, or reduce costs by providing worse service than they would provide if they were competing in an open market,” Chopra added.
The Bureau will receive comments on the policy statement through July 3.