Debt collection

Consumers' confidence in the economy moved closer to a 5 1/2-year high as a result of growing optimism that wages and hiring will improve in the next few months.

Suburban Chicago business owner Daniel Dvorkin had just been ordered to pay more than $8 million to a debt collector last year when he took a lucrative but deadly proposition to a gun shop owner he knew, according to prosecutors.

Western Sky Financial, an online loan company based on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota, cites "unprecedented government interference" as the reason for laying off the majority of its employees.

A Greensboro, N.C. hospital has filed a lawsuit seeking more than $5 million from an Illinois company it hired to hand its collection efforts.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday sued Morgan Drexen Inc., of Costa Mesa, Calif., alleging it illegally charged more than 22,000 customers millions of dollars in upfront fees to help resolve outstanding debts.

Global mobile marketer Jesta Digital LLC, will provide refunds to a large number of consumers and pay an additional $1.2 million to the Federal Trade Commission as part of a settlement. The FTC alleged that Jesta crammed unwanted charges onto consumers’ cell phone bills.

The national auto loan delinquency rate (the percentage of accounts 60 or more days past due) remained relatively flat in the second quarter ended June 30 compared with the year-ago period, moving from 0.79% to 0.80%.

A new research report on student loan debt is pinpointing the lasting financial effects.

Certegy Check Services Inc., one of the largest check authorization service companies, agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle charges that it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Foreclosure filings in July — including default notices, auctions and bank repossessions — climbed 2% from a 78-month low in June but were still 32% lower than a year ago, according to RealtyTrac.

Capital One Financial Corp. reported delinquencies for its U.S. credit-card business increased in July from June, while its international credit cards delinquencies fell, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Experian Automotive announced Tuesday that quarterly vehicle repossessions dropped by 14.8% to achieve the lowest rate since it began tracking the data seven years ago.

The national credit card delinquency rate (the ratio of borrowers 90 or more days past due) decreased to 0.57% in Q2 2013 from 0.63% in Q2 2012.

First Data Corp. released its SpendTrend analysis for July 2-30, compared with July 3-31, 2012. SpendTrend tracks same-store consumer spending by credit, signature debit, PIN debit, EBT, closed-loop prepaid cards and checks at U.S. merchant locations.

The national mortgage delinquency rate (the rate of borrowers 60 or more days past due) continued its decline in 2013, dropping to 4.09% through the end of the second quarter, nearly 26% lower than the year-ago period. Since last quarter, the mortgage delinquency rate has fallen 10%.

It’s not often that early warnings of future challenges are clear, but it seems that rising interest rates will soon stress a collections operation. Fortunately, with data analytics, firms can prepare and leverage recent gains in compliance and customer experience so that rising delinquencies don’t drive inefficiencies or unnecessary cost increases.

A U.S. district court has halted a collection operation that allegedly extorted payments from consumers by using threats of lawsuits and calculated campaigns to embarrass consumers by unlawfully communicating with family members, friends and coworkers.

Research and Markets, a global market research firm, has announced the release of the "UK Consumer Debt Purchase and Debt Collection: Market Insight" report.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Tuesday that Hampshire Memorial Hospital and Mosaic Finance Solutions, based in North Carolina, will each pay the state $7,500 as part of an agreement, called an assurance of discontinuance, to end illegal collection practices.

A federal judge has found in favor of the Federal Trade Commission in its case against an online operation that illegally debited consumers’ bank accounts when they visited the defendants’ Web sites seeking payday loans.