On Dec. 22, 2009, more than six years since President George W. Bush signed into law the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA), the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced the final rules that require creditors to provide consumers with a notice when they have been charged more for credit based on their credit score. The final rules implemented in FACTA amends the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the primary federal law that governs the use of credit reports.Read more

According to a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint filed in December 2008, Gregory Navone, a mortgage broker from Las Vegas improperly disposed of about 40 boxes of sensitive consumer records collected by companies he had owned, including tax returns, mortgage applications, bank statements, photocopies of credit cards and drivers’ licenses, and at least 230 credit reports.Read more

PClender.com Inc. has announced the availability of its Compliance Requirements Summary matrix to assist the lending community with a comprehensive plan for managing current and future regulatory changes with confidence. The free document is available for download andRead more

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced that it is lowering from $11 to $10.50 the maximum amount that consumer reporting agencies are allowed to charge consumers for an extra copy of their credit report. The Commission announced the reduction in the amount from 2009 to 2010 under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which requires the FTC each year to revise the cap originally set by statute based on the change in the Consumer Price Index. The fee is rounded to the nearest .50 cents.Read more

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has announced the promotions of two employees to associate vice president and three employees to director. The two new associate vice presidents are Shelley Reback and Michael Sorohan. The three new directors are Teressa Jefferies, Masuda Ranjber and Alicia Roundy.Read more

The sale and use of mortgage trigger leads has successfully cleared another legal challenge recently, when the Second Circuit Court upheld the prior decision to dismiss a challenge to the practice by Premium Mortgage Corporation of Rochester, N.Y. This comes after the three national credit bureaus, lead by their trade association, the Consumer Data Industry Association (CDIA), successfully filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Attorney General to stop a Minnesota law that would have effectively banned the practice in July of 2007.Read more

The Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) is on the way and its gestation stage will not be as long as many expect.¹ Although its nascence will endure the inevitable crucible of politics churned out by the Congress, federal and state regulatory bodies, bank and non-bank industry lobbyists, and eminent legal scholars,² the actors in this drama seem to argue, at one extreme, for a CFPA with robust oversight and regulatory enforcement authorities, and, at the other extreme, some kind of oversight agency that reviRead more

Experian, a global information services company, has announced its suite of leading “ability to pay” products—Income Insight and Income View—designed to be the definitive source for determining consumers’ ability to pay. Income Insight is a unique product designed to support recent legislation by providing an estimate of a borrower’s individual income utilizing verified income data and proprietary credit bureau attributes.Read more

While Congress is debating the future of the proposed centralized federal enforcement agency for the financial services sector, one thing regarding enforcement has already been established: With or without the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is aggressively pursuing violations. The FTC’s new Director for the Bureau of Consumer Protection is David Vladeck, and in a little more than one month on the job, Vladeck’s actions have made some strong statements about consumer protection.Read more

When looking to challenge derogatory items with requirements outlined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), a consumer typically has two options: Do it themselves or hire a professional credit repair agency. Which is better? It depends on the situation. There are many factors that one has to take into consideration when planning the credit repair process.Read more