Law and regulation

Lawsuits citing alleged Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) violations held steady (564) in the first half of April compared with the second half of March (562) while the total number of consumer statute lawsuits jumped to 617 from 570, according to data from U.S. District Courts.

The Federal Trade Commission is mailing $3 million in refunds to more than 172,000 consumers who were falsely promised free gifts and wrongfully paid monthly fees for “program memberships” in discount buying and travel clubs.

WASHINGTON — Sony Corp.'s disclosure that a massive data breach may have let thieves steal the personal information of more than 77 million PlayStation users is playing into the hands of banks attempting to change a Federal Reserve Board proposal to limit debit interchange fees.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is in another sparring session with the American Bankers Association and asks the organization to “cut to the chase” regarding the motivations behind the organization’s criticisms of the interchange reform law that Congress enacted last year.

West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw has filed a lawsuit against a title lender that allegedly failed to turn over records sought in an investigation into collection practices.

The Financial Supervisory Service of South Korea is tightening its supervision of the country’s credit card companies over concerns that rising card loans may lead to an unmanageable default crisis, the regulator announced Apr 25.

Issues regarding the use and issuance of credit cards represent the top complaints the Philippines’ central bank has received since it set up a mechanism for addressing complaints from the country’s bank customers in 2006, according to the bank.

WASHINGTON — While the banking industry clearly has momentum on its side in the fight to delay a rule that would limit debit interchange fees, time for Congress to act is rapidly running out.

The Federal Trade Commission has returned $1.5 million to 3,162 consumers harmed by a California-based mortgage lending company and its owner.

WASHINGTON — As Congress continues to struggle over whether to delay a pending Federal Reserve Board plan to cap interchange fees for debit cards, a key question remains unresolved: How far is the central bank prepared to go on its own to modify the rule?

Richard Davis, the top executive at U.S. Bancorp and chairman of the Financial Services Roundtable, told analysts April 19 it is a toss-up as to whether the Federal Reserve Board would press ahead with its proposed 12-cent cap on debit card interchange.

Richard Davis, the top executive at U.S. Bancorp and chairman of the Financial Services Roundtable, told analysts April 19 it is a toss-up as to whether the Federal Reserve Board would press ahead with its proposed 12-cent cap on debit card interchange.

The Federal Trade Commission has filed contempt charges against a promoter of credit repair and debt relief services and three of his companies, alleging that they continued their deceptive marketing practices in violation of a federal court order.

A collection agency is being sued for threatening to garnish a Texas woman's wages to collect on a delinquent account.

A U.S. appellate court has approved Minnesota’s TCF Bank’s request for an expedited appeal of a lower court ruling denying a bid to block the Federal Reserve’s final rule on interchange charges, setting up a three-way race between the courts, the Fed and Congress on the controversial effort to limit the lucrative fees.

The Obama administration announced Friday the release of a strategy to protect consumer and business identities in cyberspace.

Visa Europe is expressing dissatisfaction with last week’s General Court of the European Union’s decision to uphold the 10.2 million euro (US14.7 million or £8.7 million) fine imposed on the company for refusing to do business with a U.S. bank, saying it had already settled the dispute in 2006.

The Reserve Bank of India is asking the nation’s credit card issuers not to authorize payments to companies offering online foreign-exchange trading to the country’s citizens.

When calculating the biggest losers of the Durbin amendment’s cap on debit fee count among them Navy FCU, the nation’s largest credit union and seventh-largest issuer of Visa debit cards.

Minnesota’s TCF Bank filed a an expedited appeal request April 14 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit asking the court to overturn a lower court’s ruling and to block the Federal Reserve’s pending implementation of the Durbin amendment’s debit fee caps.