Debt collection

NARCA held elections for secretary, treasurer and board of directors at the NARCA 2015 Fall Collection Conference in Washington, D.C. While the secretary and treasurer positions were uncontested, ten NARCA members ran for six board seats.

The third-largest county in Tennessee is looking to hire Ohio-based collection agency Capital Recovery Systems to help it pursue a combined $160 million that offenders owe in fines, fees and court costs.

The operators of an alleged tech support scam agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they tricked consumers into paying millions of dollars for technical support services they did not need and software that was otherwise free.

Consumer litigation against collection agencies had mixed results in September with Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuits dropping and Fair Credit Reporting Act litigation making a jump.

Companies of all types are turning to social media — Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and beyond — as well as tracking cookies for clues about customers' behavior, identity, preferences, habits and "life events."

A blog post published Monday by the New York Fed offered the embattled payday lending industry a rare show of regulatory support.

Fannie Mae plans to make several changes that could help more consumers, including those with little credit history, qualify for a home loan.

Consumer confidence in October remained flat amid concerns about slower growth in the labor market and across the broader economy.

A proposed class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday accusing debt-buying giant Portfolio Recovery Associates of abusing U.S. courts by filing collection lawsuits against tens of thousands of consumers based on false affidavits.

The Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act became law 10 years ago this week. The law was the culmination of a bipartisan push in Congress to change a system that seemed to encourage bankruptcy filings during a time of prosperity. It is reasonable to ask, a decade later, whether reform worked.