Washington (November 16, 2022) – Today, Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) joined Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Representatives Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR-01) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA-07) in introducing the Stopping Abuse and Fraud in Electronic (SAFE) Lending Act. The SAFE Lending Act will protect consumers from deceptive and predatory practices that strip wealth from working families by cracking down on some of the worst abuses stemming from the payday lending industry, particularly in online payday lending.
The Biden administration, with the help of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), is turning to the U.S. Supreme Court for help with legal challenges to its student loan forgiveness plan—in particular, one arguing that the plan goes beyond what Congress allows.
The Federal Trade Commission today released the National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for Fiscal Year 2022. The FTC’s National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry lets consumers add their phone number and choose not to receive most legal telemarketing calls. In the last fiscal year, over 2.5 million people signed up with the DNC Registry, bringing the total to more than 246 million phone numbers.
Since the start of the pandemic, the cost of automobiles has risen substantially. Over 100 million Americans have an auto loan, and the CFPB estimates that there is currently $1.5 trillion in outstanding auto loan debt, making it the third-largest consumer credit category after mortgages and student loans. At its current trajectory, auto loan balances will surpass outstanding student loans in the first half of 2023.
The Department of Justice, in close coordination with the Department of Education, announced today a new process for handling cases in which individuals seek to discharge their federal student loans in bankruptcy. The new process will help ensure consistent treatment of the discharge of federal student loans, reduce the burden on borrowers of pursuing such proceedings and make it easier to identify cases where discharge is appropriate. The Associate Attorney General distributed guidance outlining the new process to all U.S. Attorneys.
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