Brian Turetsky

Subscribe to Brian Turetsky's Posts
Contact: Read more about Brian Turetsky

A fintech peer-to-peer lender has entered into separate consent orders with California, Washington D.C., and Connecticut relating to its practice of requesting tips and donations in connection with the loans offered through its platform. The fintech’s platform offers opportunities for members to act as borrowers or lenders and facilitates loans between its members.… Continue Reading

On May 17, 2023, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking intended to increase transparency regarding the costs and financial outcomes of postsecondary programs. The centerpiece of the proposed regulations is a Gainful Employment (“GE”) Rule, which would terminate access to federal financial aid for career training programs that fail to meet federal benchmarks.… Continue Reading

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) received more than 225 public comments to its credit card late fee proposal (the “Proposed Rule”). As we have discussed, the Proposed Rule would make significant changes to the current rules for credit card late fees, including substantially reducing the safe harbor late fee amounts that card issuers can charge and eliminating annual inflation adjustments.… Continue Reading

In a highly anticipated decision regarding the treatment of Guaranteed Asset Protection (“GAP”) under the Military Lending Act (“MLA”), a federal appellate court has ruled that a hybrid loan that finances GAP coverage along with a motor vehicle purchase is exempt from the MLA’s restrictions.  The 2-1 decision on April 12, 2023 by the U.S.… Continue Reading

On March 23, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (“NPRM”) seeking comment on proposed amendments to the Commission’s Negative Option Rule.  The proposed amendments, which would expand the scope of the rule’s coverage to all forms of negative option marketing and consolidate various requirements dispersed across various statutes and regulations, include a “click to cancel” provision which would require a simple cancellation mechanism for consumers to easily cancel subscriptions by using the same method they used to initially enroll.… Continue Reading

On March 3, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint against a towing company located near a Marine base alleging violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act’s (SCRA) prohibition against default judgments against SCRA-protected servicemembers.  The case, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, alleges that the towing company failed to make a good faith effort to ascertain the military status of defendants before filing affidavits in court cases claiming military status could not be determined.… Continue Reading

On February 27, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) entered into a consent order against RMK Financial Corporation d/b/a Majestic Home Loan (RMK), a California-based mortgage lender, based on allegations that it falsely implied government endorsement of its home loans in its marketing. The consent order, which addressed numerous alleged statutory and regulatory violations and a failure to comply with an earlier consent order, prohibits RMK from engaging in any mortgage lending activities (or from receiving remuneration from mortgage lending) going forward, effectively shutting it down.… Continue Reading

On February 23, 2023, the CFPB announced in a blog post that it had issued orders to nine large auto lenders requesting information about their auto lending portfolios.  The orders, which the CFPB says were sent to a cross-section of the auto finance market, represent the latest action taken by the Bureau in its effort to build a new data set that gives better insight into market trends. … Continue Reading

A new report from the Urban Institute examining the 2015 expansion of the Military Lending Act (“MLA”) concludes that it did not lead to better credit and debt outcomes for servicemembers and may instead have limited access to credit for some servicemembers with deep prime credit scores.  The report, titled “The Effects of APR Caps and Consumer Protections on Revolving Loans: Evidence from the 2015 Military Lending Act Expansion,” used credit bureau data to assess the impact of the MLA’s expansion on credit card ownership rates, credit limits, delinquency rates, and credit scores of MLA covered borrowers with subprime credit scores. … Continue Reading

On January 31, 2023, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (“Mass AG”) announced a settlement with Hometown Auto Framingham, Inc. (“Hometown Auto”), resolving allegations that the auto dealership had engaged in unfair, deceptive, and discriminatory pricing of add-on products sold to Black and Hispanic consumers.  Under the terms of the settlement, Hometown Auto will pay $350,000, which includes $200,000 in restitution and a $150,000 civil penalty.… Continue Reading