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CFPB Head: Limited Control Over Online Lending
Posted by: Jeff Brownlee By Alan Zibel The Wall Street Journal August 22, 2013 The head of a federal consumer regulator conceded his agency has limited ability to tamp down on high-interest online payday lending, a growing industry that is subject to a patchwork of oversight. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray’s remarks come […]
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Indian Tribes Said to Sue N.Y. Financial Regulator
Posted by: Liz Jones From Bloomberg Two American Indian tribes sued New York state’s financial regulatory agency and its head over his crackdown on Internet lending businesses, some of which are tribally owned. A lawsuit seeking a court order against Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, was filed yesterday in […]
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OLA to NACHA: Online Lenders and Loans are Legal
Posted by: Liz Jones The group that runs the Automatic Clearing House (ACH) system is asked to clarify its letter to banks and processors The Online Lenders Alliance (OLA) is asking NACHA, The Electronics Payments Association, to clarify a recent letter it sent to banks that may have been misinterpreted by banks as a direction […]
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New York Suit Raises Heat for Online Lenders with Tribal Links
Posted by: Jeff Brownlee By Mary Wisniewski American Banker August 9, 2013 When Benjamin Lawsky, New York State’s Superintendent of Financial Services, sent a letter earlier this week to 35 online lenders, instructing them to “cease and desist” from offering loans that violate local usury laws, an interesting fact jumped out: several were Native American […]
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U.S. Regulators Squeeze Banks to Cut Ties to Some Online Lenders
Posted by: Jeff Brownlee By Carter Dougherty Bloomberg August 9, 2013 The Department of Justice and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are pressuring banks to cut ties to online lenders whom regulators suspect of shady business practices, as part of a broad crackdown on frauds in the payment system, according to five people briefed on […]
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Probe Turns Up Heat on Banks
Posted by: Jeff Brownlee By Alan Zibel and Brent Kendall The Wall Street Journal The Justice Department is targeting banks that service a broad range of what it considers questionable financial ventures, including online payday lenders. The government has issued subpoenas to banks and other companies that handle payments for an array of financial offerings, […]
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New York Tells Online Lenders to Abide by State’s Interest Rate Cap
Posted by: Jeff Brownlee By Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Ben Protess The New York Times Government authorities are homing in on a lucrative loophole that allows online lenders to offer short-term loans at interest rates that often exceed 500 percent annually, the latest front in a crackdown on the payday lending industry. New York State’s financial […]
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Regulators warn of ‘phantom’ debt collectors’ (LA Times)
Posted by: Liz Jones By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times February 22, 2012, 5:43 a.m. Reporting from Washington— Federal regulators warned of a new scam in which so-called phantom debt collectors harass people into paying bills they don’t even owe, typically preying on Americans already burdened with financial problems.Officials said Tuesday that they had shut down […]
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Federal Trade Commission chases phantom debt collectors with lawsuit filed in Chicago
One of the newest consumer scams involves debt collectors who bully consumers into paying debts they don’t owe.
One scheme, which has bilked U.S. consumers out of some $5 million so far, involved about 8 million phone calls originating in India. They were placed to American consumers over an eight-month period, the Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday.
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Court Order Halts Debt-Collection Operation FTC Calls Fraudulent
A federal judge in Chicago moved to shut businesses that allegedly used illegally obtained personal financial data to make threatening debt collection calls from India to thousands of consumers who didn’t owe them money.
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FTC issues warning on fake debt collectors
(CHICAGO) (WLS) — The Federal Trade Commission warns consumers about what they call fraudulent debt collectors.
The agency says the companies included in a new lawsuit prey on people who have used online payday loan services. The lawsuit was filed against two companies and one individual. Officials say they used threats and scare tactics to get people to make payments they do not really owe.
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Authorities: Debt-collector scam bilked millions
A phone scam in which callers in India posed as debt collectors bilked millions of dollars out of more than 10,000 U.S. residents by using threats of arrest or the loss of their jobs, U.S. authorities said Tuesday in what they described as a first-of-its-kind investigation.
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