Free Republic

A court tossed out a regulation written by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for payday lenders last week, saying the agency's funding was unconstitutional and that it, therefore, lacked the ability to curb the industry. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit voided a CFPB rule that prohibited payday lenders from debiting the accounts of customers who miss a payment without getting their consent first. While the ruling applied just to that regulation, financial service attorneys say it muddies the agency's authority and has the potential to upend all of its rules. "The Fifth Circuit's ruling potentially calls...

NBC Meet the Press - Tom Brokaw grills Biden on Meet the Press re: legislation that seemed to help Hunter Biden who worked for credit card companies and Biden's efforts to stop legislation aimed at curbing predatory lending.

What would you think of a lender that has holds more than one $1 trillion in loans outstanding, targets low income and minority borrowers, has a payment delinquency and default rate in excess of 25 percent, and has postponed repayment on 14 percent of its loans, but is still accruing interest on them? Wouldn't you think that some government agency—say, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Reserve, or even Congress—would be investigating this perfect definition of a predatory lender and trying to shut it down? Roughly 45 percent of people that enroll in college ultimately drop out without ever...

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee wants to help you buy your first home. So much so, in fact, that the city is now willing to lend certain first-time home buyers up to $200,000 toward the down payment on their first house or condominium in San Francisco. That’s real money, but in a city where the median sales price was $925,000 in February, is $200,000 enough to make a difference to low-income and middle-class residents being priced out of the city by the tech boom? […] The new limit, which goes into effect this month, will allow some home buyers to...

Call it predatory lending. Or call it financial service for the neediest. Either way, more Minnesotans are turning to high-interest payday loans and other services outside the mainstream banking system, controversial enterprises that operate through a loophole to dodge state restrictions. On a typical morning throughout Minnesota, customers stream into any one of some 100 storefronts where they can borrow hundreds of dollars in minutes with no credit check – at Super Cash on the north side of Bloomington, for example, at Ace Minnesota Corp. on Nicollet Avenue in Richfield and across the metro on Roseville’s Rice Street at PayDay...

President Barack Obama says Congress must give more homeowners the chance to refinance their mortgages to save money. Obama says more than 2 million people are saving about $3,000 a year after restructuring their loans under his administration but that more deserve the same chance. …

In an oped today in the Washington Post, Obama's two chief economic advisors laid out the principles for the administration's new regulatory framework. There are five principles. 1) More focus on systemic risk

Foreclosures have spiked in the Portland area and central Oregon's Deschutes County just as President Barack Obama launches his plan to help Americans stay in their homes. The number of new mortgage defaults in the four-county Portland area and Deschutes County -- some of the areas hit hardest by foreclosures -- is on pace to exceed 4,500 in the first three months of 2009 * * * If that holds, the increase would be more than 20 percent from the last quarter of 2008 and four times more than the glory days of the housing boom three years ago. *...

he story of the two-bedroom, one-bath shack on West Hopi Street, is the story of this year's financial panic, told in 576 square feet. It helps explain how a series of bad decisions can add up to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Less than two years ago, Integrity Funding LLC, a local lender, gave a $103,000 mortgage to the owner, Marvene Halterman, an unemployed woman with a long list of creditors and, by her own account, a long history of drug and alcohol abuse. For a $350 fee, an appraiser hired by Integrity, Michael T. Asher, valued...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11, 2008 – Financial scams and predatory lending against servicemembers and veterans is so common that the Arizona attorney general has created an advisory board to stop it. “We got so many complaints that were related to either veterans or active-duty military on our consumer line that I felt it was necessary to set up this coordinating council,” Terry Goddard said. “It’s been very, very rewarding already and its only had one meeting.” Goddard, a retired Navy Reserve commander and Arizona’s attorney general for the last six years, said he was sure some of the complaints his...

Metro housing slide keeps repo man busy 'Snowball effect' from mortgage woes, easy credit keeps lot overflowing By TAMMY JOYNER The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 09/03/07 Swing by Richard Grosvenor's business for a closeup of how quickly the nation's housing market is unraveling. In the last six months, Grosvenor and his repo drivers have hauled in hundreds of vehicles in the course of normal business. Richard Grosvenor stands amongst repossessed vehicles, including a Corvette taken from a plumber (left), on his 3-acre lot at Speedy Recovery in Lithonia on August 29, 2007. With credit and mortgage problems rising, Grosvenor has...

The Durham (N.C.)-based nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending estimated in July, 2001, that predatory mortgage lending is currently costing Americans more than $9.1 billion each year. ADVERTISEMENT Lenders will argue that each one of these dollars represents a legitimate fee stipulated by a legitimate contract, that they are only viewed as predatory by borrowers who overlooked the fine print in their mortgage. But ask Ted Janusz, who spent an interim period of his career learning the ins and outs of mortgage brokering as a loan officer in Columbus, Ohio, and he'll admit that what is really going on here is...

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Navy officials said they will continue to pursue predatory lending legislation after California lawmakers significantly weakened language and then voted against Assembly Bill (AB) 1965 on the last day of session, Aug. 31. Lawmakers in the California Senate rejected a bill that proposed a 36 percent rate cap for payday loans, deferral of payments while deployed and a grace period for up to 30 days upon a service member returning from a deployment. “If you [a civilian] choose to find yourself in this situation, your job is not at risk, national security is not in jeopardy,”...

THANKS TO South Carolina’s anti-predatory lending law, borrowers are getting better loans. Critics claimed such laws would cause subprime credit to dry up and make it tough for high-risk borrowers to get loans. But a recent report by the Center for Responsible Lending in Raleigh debunks that. . In 2003, S.C. lawmakers, prodded by a small but game group of consumer advocates, did the right thing by approving a law that protects vulnerable consumers. Unsavory lenders — legalized loan sharks, if you will — had spent years ripping off unwitting consumers. One study found S.C. borrowers were losing $107 million...

TACOMA, Wash., Dec. 9 - As one of more than two million Americans who rushed to a courthouse this year to file for bankruptcy before a tough new law took effect, Laura Fogle is glad for her chance at a fresh start. A nurse and single mother of two, she blames her use of credit cards after cancer surgery for falling into deep debt. Ms. Fogle is broke, and may not seem to be the kind of person to whom banks would want to offer credit cards. But she said she had no sooner filed for bankruptcy, and sworn off...

A young couple from Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., told a woeful tale of lost jobs, a lost home in Florida, a deeply troubled 12-year-old, and a kiting operation that kept all their credit-card payments up to date. "I had to take money from the Optima card to pay the bill on the MBNA," the wife said. "But I always paid." With $258,685 on more than 60 cards, they finally filed for bankruptcy....... Bankruptcy lawyers say that this does not mean that homeowners have been more prudent than renters. "Two or three years ago, mortgage companies were giving money to anyone," Mr....

Suit alleges credit-cards colluded - WSJ Thu Sep 1, 2005 2:42 AM ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lawsuit filed in New York federal court alleges eight leading credit card companies violated U.S. antitrust laws by colluding to promote arbitration of customer disputes, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. It said the complaint alleges Bank of America Corp. , Capital One Financial Corp. Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co , Morgan Stanley's Discover unit, Citigroup Inc. , MBNA Corp. , Providian Financial Corp. and Britain's HSBC Holdings plc "combined, conspired and agreed to implement and/or maintain mandatory arbitration." Many...

Mortgage foreclosures at 30-year highBy Christine MacDonald As the economy continues to falter, mortgage foreclosures across the nation have jumped to a 30-year high. And the few Lansing-area nonprofit groups that support homeowners say they don't have enough money to meet the growing demand for help. Besides the rise in mortgage foreclosures, more Ingham County properties are in the foreclosure process. That's in part because of a new state law that lets the state foreclose more quickly on property owners not paying taxes, officials said. To keep more people in their homes, the county treasurer proposes raising the income level...

The Associated Press 4/23/02 11:21 PM OLYMPIA (AP) -- As many as 1,200 Washington residents may be eligible to receive part of a $60 million settlement with a California mortgage company accused of preying on borrowers with misleading pitches and hidden fees. The Federal Trade Commission, six states and the senior citizen advocacy group AARP alleged in court that First Alliance Mortgage Corp. of Irvine, Calif., used telemarketing and direct mail to target borrowers who couldn't qualify for conventional loans because of low income or bad credit histories. Mark Thomson, acting director of Washington state's Department of Financial Institutions, called...