Student loan payments are restarting in October after a pause of more than three years — and scammers are trying to take advantage, the Federal Trade Commission warned. Fraudsters may try mislead borrowers by offering assistance and asking them to pay for it, Ari Lazarus, consumer education specialist at the FTC, wrote in a consumer alert Thursday. Those fake offers might include lowering borrowers’ monthly payments, avoiding repayment or getting their loans forgiven.
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) on September 11, 2023, settled a claim against a group of affiliated entities operating a background reporting business, Instant Checkmate, LLC, TruthFinder, LLC, The Control Group Media Company, LLC, Intelicare Direct, LLC, and PubRec LLC (“background report companies” or “companies”) for alleged misrepresentations that deceived consumers about whether they had criminal records and for operating as a consumer reporting agency without following the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”).
Reversing a recent down trend, robocalls increased by 5% in August to 5.4 billion, according to Robokiller Insights. The worst offenders, the report said, were robocalls related to financial services, debt collection, medical scams, and loans. It’s not just the scam calls that are a problem; robotexts are a problem, too. Even with a 4% decrease in robotexts, Americans still received 11.3 billion robotexts in August.
Consumers in the U.S. have racked up more than $1.2 trillion in credit card debt, but some states — such as California — have larger increases and per-household debt than others.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. bank groups on Tuesday accused the Federal Reserve and other regulators of violating federal laws with a sweeping proposal to raise capital requirements, escalating an assault on the draft rules that were also blasted by bank executives.