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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has finalized a significant enforcement action against Lexington Law and CreditRepair.com, two of the country’s largest credit repair companies. In August 2023, the CFPB obtained a $2.7 billion judgment against these companies for violating federal consumer protection laws. By December 2024, the CFPB began distributing $1.8 billion to 4.3 million consumers from its victims relief fund, representing the largest distribution in the agency’s history.

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) took action to address unlawful student loan debt collection practices by Performant Recovery, Inc. against defaulted borrowers. The CFPB found that Performant delayed borrowers’ loan rehabilitation processes, generating fees for itself and costing individual borrowers thousands of dollars. The CFPB’s order requires Performant to pay a $700,000 penalty and bans it from servicing or collecting any student loan debts.

The Federal Trade Commission has stopped a scheme that allegedly bilked millions of dollars out of consumers burdened with student loan debt by pretending to be affiliated with the U.S. Department of Education in violation of the FTC’s Impersonation Rule, collecting illegal advance fees, and making other deceptive claims.

On December 3, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued version 1.1 of the “Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices and Unfair, Deceptive, or Abusive Acts or Practices” booklet of the Comptroller’s Handbook, also known as the UDAAP booklet. The UDAAP booklet was last updated in June 2020.

On December 3, the CFPB announced a proposed rule to enhance oversight of data brokers that handle consumers’ sensitive personal and financial information. The proposed rule would amend Regulation V, which implements the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), to require data brokers to comply with credit bureau-style regulations under FCRA if they sell income data or certain other financial information on consumers, regardless of its end use.