Blackstone Legal and its owners will be permanently banned from the debt collection industry following a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuit that alleged the operation misled and harassed consumers to collect fake debts.
The FTC charged Blackstone Legal, its affiliated companies, and owners Ryan and Mitchell Evans in February 2025, accusing them of pressuring consumers into paying non-existent debts. The operation allegedly used false threats of lawsuits, credit damage, and wage garnishment to coerce payments, resulting in consumer losses amounting to millions of dollars.
A Federal Judge has ruled that two NCUA board members were illegally fired by President Trump and has restored their positions on the board.
Judge Amir H. Ali, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said that Democrats Todd Harper and Tanya Otsuka could only be removed for cause. Trump had fired them without cause.
Account reconciliation sounds simple enough—place the account, recall the account, close it out. But if you’ve ever tried to herd cats, you’ll understand just how chaotic things can get when everyone’s not moving in the same direction.
In collections, the “cats” are the systems: the creditor’s platform, the collection agency’s software, national forwarders, repossession vendors, and sometimes legal partners.
Following the 2025 Supreme Court decision in McLaughlin Chiro. Assoc., Inc. v. McKesson Corp., et al., the Hobbs Act cannot act as a barrier to independent judicial review. Partnered with the recent Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which pulled back the deference previously provided to agency interpretation, McLaughlin confirms that in enforcement proceedings, district courts may exercise their own analysis—independent of agency interpretation—of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act
The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) today released its Office of the Ombudsman 2024 Annual Report(Opens new window). The report highlights information about the Ombudsman’s core programs, which inform recommendations made by the Ombudsman to the NCUA Board. The report also details the activities of the Ombudsman for 2024, such as engagement with examiners, results from independent reviews of agency processes, and feedback from the Post Exam Survey.
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