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  • California Amends Consumer Reporting Law

    Consumer Finance

    On September 30, California enacted AB 1220, which extends protections under the state’s consumer reporting law. Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, a consumer reporting agency may not prohibit a user of a consumer credit report furnished by the agency from providing a copy of the report to a consumer, upon the consumer’s request, if the user has taken adverse action against the consumer based upon the report. AB 1220 adopts the same prohibition, and also makes it unlawful for a consumer reporting agency to dissuade, or attempt to dissuade a user from providing the report. Further, the bill allows state and local law enforcement authorities to bring a civil action for a civil penalty up to $5,000 against a violating consumer reporting agency.

    FCRA Consumer Reporting

  • Maine Simplifies Credit Reporting Law

    Consumer Finance

    This week, Maine enacted a bill to simplify the state’s credit reporting law. The bill, SP 504, was drafted by the Bureau of Consumer Protection to ease compliance burden primarily by eliminating provisions mirroring the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and instead incorporating the federal FCRA and its implementing regulations. The bill retains and reorganizes existing additional state credit reporting consumer protections.

    FCRA Consumer Reporting

  • CFPB Releases Consumer Reporting and Money Transfer Complaints, Expands Complaint Database Functionality

    Consumer Finance

    On May 31, the CFPB published for the first time consumer complaints about credit reporting, which the CFPB began accepting in October 2012, and money transfer complaints, which it began accepting in April 2013. The CFPB also announced that all complaints in its consumer complaint database now include a field for the state from which the complaint was filed. That field allows the CFPB to report, for example, that the top states for per capita mortgage complaints are (i) New Hampshire, (ii) Maryland, (iii) the District of Columbia, (iv) Georgia, and (v) Florida.

    CFPB Consumer Reporting Money Service / Money Transmitters Consumer Complaints

  • New York Demands Credit Score Changes for Hurricane Sandy-Impacted Consumers

    Consumer Finance

    On April 25, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) sent a letter to several consumer credit bureaus, demanding that the firms (i) ensure that credit scores are not lowered for consumers adversely impacted by Hurricane Sandy, (ii) reset any scores that have been lowered, (iii) work with banks and other lenders to red flag any negative information relating to storm-impacted consumers, and (iv) meet with the DFS to permanently change procedures to prevent credit scores from going down for consumers impacted by a disaster. The letter asserts such actions are required because financial challenges created by the storm could negatively impact individual credit scores for reasons that are unrelated to their creditworthiness. The state’s press release provides a phone number for consumers to call if they believe that their credit has been “unfairly impacted” by the storm.

    Consumer Reporting Disaster Relief

  • Federal Court Holds Credit Furnisher Must Show Proof of Investigation of Consumer Dispute under FCRA

    Consumer Finance

    On February 22, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona held that a furnisher of credit information must present evidence regarding its investigation of a consumer's credit reporting dispute in order to satisfy the FCRA dispute resolution requirements. Modica v. Am. Suzuki Fin. Servs., No. CV11-02183-PHX, 2013 WL 656495 (D. Ariz. Feb. 22, 2013). The plaintiff leased a vehicle from the defendant and did not return it at the end of the lease term. The defendant reported the account as "current/paying as agreed" after the plaintiff returned the vehicle. The plaintiff disputed this charge to the credit bureaus which contacted the defendant to notify them of the dispute and confirm the charge. The defendant eventually changed the report to show an unpaid balance with a charge-off, prompting the plaintiff to bring suit alleging breach of contract, violation of a state law regarding credit reporting, and violation of FCRA. In denying the defendant's motion for summary judgment as to the FCRA claim, the court noted that FCRA requires a furnisher of credit information to conduct a "reasonable investigation" upon receipt of a consumer dispute. The court found that the creditor did not engage in a reasonable investigation—the defendant was unable to explain discrepancies between what it submitted to the credit reporting agencies and a letter it submitted to the plaintiff which showed she had no past due payments. In fact, the defendant was unable to say what the credit investigation entailed, a fact that precluded its claim for summary judgment.

    FCRA Consumer Reporting

  • CFPB Director Cordray Outlines CFPB Agenda

    Consumer Finance

    On February 20, in remarks during the public portion of the CFPB’s Consumer Advisory Board meeting, CFPB Director Richard Cordray identified four “classes of problems” the CFPB will seek to address in the future. Mr. Cordray stated that the CFPB will focus on (i) deceptive and misleading marketing of consumer financial products and services; (ii) financial products that trigger a cycle of debt; (iii) certain markets – such as debt collection, loan servicing, and credit reporting – where consumers are unable to choose their provider; and (iv) discrimination. While the CFPB has already taken a number of enforcement actions to address the first set of problems, Mr. Cordray noted that with respect to the second class of problems the CFPB is still assessing how to deploy its various tools to best protect consumers while preserving access to responsible credit. Mr. Cordray also noted that loan servicing practices remain a concern, and again drew parallels between the mortgage servicing market and the student loan servicing market, noting that the CFPB is looking to take steps that may address the same kinds of problems faced by student loan borrowers. With respect to discrimination, Mr. Cordray argued that African-Americans and Hispanics have unequal access to responsible credit and pay more for mortgages and auto loans, and reiterated the CFPB’s commitment to utilizing the disparate impact theory of discrimination when pursuing enforcement actions.

    CFPB Payday Lending Student Lending Debt Collection Fair Lending Consumer Reporting

  • Democratic Senators Urge Further Action on Credit Reporting

    Consumer Finance

    On February 15, Senate Banking Committee members Mark Warner (D-VA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a letter to the CFPB and the FTC following up on the agencies’ recent reports regarding the consumer reporting market. The Senators ask for the agencies’ help in “tak[ing] further action to improve consumer credit reporting,” and request that they prepare a separate report on whether the current legal framework for the regulation of credit reporting is sufficient or whether additional legislation may be needed.

    CFPB Consumer Reporting U.S. Senate

  • FTC Releases Results of Credit Reporting Study

    Consumer Finance

    On February 11, the FTC released the results of its study of the U.S. credit reporting industry, including its finding that five percent of consumers had errors on one of their three major credit reports that could lead to them paying more for products. The study also found that (i) one in four consumers identified errors on their credit reports that might affect their credit scores; (ii) one in five consumers had an error that was corrected by a credit reporting agency (CRA) after it was disputed; (iii) four out of five consumers who filed disputes experienced some modification to their credit report, with slightly more than one in 10 noticing a change in their credit score after the agencies modified errors on their credit report; (iv) approximately one in 20 consumers had a maximum score change of more than 25 points and only one in 250 consumers had a maximum score change of more than 100 points. The main types of disputed and confirmed material errors identified by the study were errors in the trade line (consumer accounts) or collections information. The FTC report is the first major study that looks at the full range of participants in the credit reporting and scoring process, including consumers; data furnishers, which include creditors, lenders, debt collection agencies, and the court system; the Fair Isaac Corporation, which develops FICO credit scores; and the national CRAs. The FTC is required to conduct a study of credit report accuracy and provide interim reports every two years, through 2012, with a final report due in 2014. Late last year, the CFPB, which shares jurisdiction over CRAs, published a white paper on its review of how the three largest CRAs manage consumer data and complaints.

    FTC Consumer Reporting

  • CFPB Publishes White Paper on Largest Consumer Reporting Agencies

    Consumer Finance

    On December 13, the CFPB issued a white paper on its review of 2011 data to determine how the three largest consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) manage consumer data and complaints. According to the CFPB press release, its review of the data revealed that more than half of the trade lines (the accounts in a consumer’s name reported by creditors) in the CRAs databases are supplied by the credit card industry, with 40 percent related to bank cards, such as general credit cards, and 18 percent from retail credit cards. Only seven percent comes from mortgage lenders or servicers, and only four percent comes from auto lenders. The CFPB also reported that (i) almost 40 percent of disputes have to do with collections, and debt in collection is five times more likely to be disputed than mortgage information, (ii) fewer than one in five people obtain copies of their credit report each year, (iii) most information contained in credit reports comes from a few large companies, and (iv) most complaints are forwarded to the furnishers that provided the original information, while the CRAs resolve an average of 15 percent of consumer disputed items internally. The report adds that certain documentation provided by consumers to support their cases may not be getting passed on to the data furnishers for them to properly investigate and report back to the CRA, but the report does not offer any policy prescriptions.

    CFPB Nonbank Supervision Consumer Reporting

  • Third Circuit Shields Property Reporting Firm from FCRA Liability

    Consumer Finance

    On December 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that a property reporting firm cannot be held liable for a willful violation of FCRA because the firm’s interpretation that it was not a consumer reporting agency subject to FCRA requirements was not unreasonable. Fuges v. Southwest Fin. Servs., Ltd., No 11-4504, 2012 WL 6051966 (3rd Cir. Dec. 6, 2012). The borrower filed a putative class action against a property reporting firm, alleging that the firm failed to comply with FCRA when it prepared a report requested by a bank in connection with the borrower’s credit application. On the reporting firm’s motion for summary judgment, the district court explained that the property report contained information about deeds, mortgages, parcel number and taxes, and lien information that more closely relate to a particular parcel of property than to a particular consumer, and that the report did not contain a social security number, payment history, previous addresses, or other information typically included in consumer credit reports. It held that no jury could find that the firm acted willfully because the firm’s reading of FCRA as not being applicable to property-reporting activities was not unreasonable, and granted summary judgment in favor of the firm. The appellate court agreed, holding that (i) the statute’s terms are ambiguous, (ii) the firm’s reading of the those terms has some foundation in the statutory text, and was therefore not objectively unreasonable, and (iii) there is no judicial or agency guidance that would suggest that the firm’s reading is contrary to the intended meaning of the provisions in question, and therefore the firm did not run a substantial risk in adopting its interpretation. Further, the court rejected the borrower’s argument that the reporting firm should lose the potential protection of the “reasonable interpretation” defense, because it never actually interpreted FCRA prior to the commencement of the suit. The court affirmed summary judgment in favor of the reporting firm.

    FCRA Consumer Reporting

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