Press Releases
October 27, 2022
Washington, D.C. – The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) and National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) today expressed support for the Protecting Wages of Essential Workers Act of 2022 (Protecting Wages Act). The bill will ensure that working Americans who hold consumer debt are not hit with excessive wage seizures that leave them unable to afford necessities. The legislation also prohibits debt collectors from using threats of jail to coerce payment of a debt.
The Protecting Wages Act (H.R.9224), introduced this week by Rep. Alma Adams (D-NC), is designed to better protect families...
August 31, 2022
Debt Buyers’ Lawsuit Assembly Lines Should Be Dismantled for Lack of Appropriate Documentation of Debt
Raleigh, NC – Yesterday, the North Carolina Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Townes v. Portfolio Recovery Associates (PRA), for which the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) and several other organizations submitted an amicus brief. The brief urges North Carolina courts to enforce existing statutory protections — and interpret laws as they were written — to prevent harm to vulnerable consumers. The NC Attorney General also submitted a brief in support of Townes.
The...
August 2, 2022
New report supports movement to end cash bail in San Francisco Bay Area and across the U.S.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A new report released today by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) highlights how bail bond companies, acting with little regulatory oversight, saddle low-income and low-wealth families with unmanageable debt burdens that have devastating short- and long-term financial consequences, particularly for Black and Latino families.
CRL partnered with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF) to conduct interviews with San Francisco Bay...
February 7, 2022
Washington D.C.— Lucia Mattox, the director of western states outreach and senior policy associate at the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) made the following statement in response to recent reports that JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank with over $3.2 trillion in assets, has renewed a predatory practice called “robo-signing,” which occurs when companies filing lawsuits against consumers sign and churn out affidavits without verifying the validity of debts or pertinent documents:
Even as they continue to struggle with the impact of the COVID19 pandemic, tens of thousands of...
May 13, 2021
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States House of Representatives today passed the Comprehensive Debt Collection Improvement Act (H.R. 2547).
Introduced by House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, the Act is comprised of eight bills that would collectively enact critical debt collection reforms aimed at protecting vulnerable consumers. If passed into law, the Act would, in part, prohibit the collection of medical debt for two years after a procedure, as well as prohibit credit reporting of debt arising from medically necessary procedures. It also would amend the Fair Debt...
December 18, 2020
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released the second part of its final debt collection rule, which includes new provisions on time-barred or “zombie” debt for which the statute of limitations has expired, validation notices, and language access, among others. The first part of the rule, released in October, focused on telephone calls and electronic communications.
Despite the urging of many advocacy organizations, including the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), the CFPB’s final rule does not ban the collection of time-barred debt out of court....
October 30, 2020
One-Third of U.S. Adults with a Credit Report Have Debt in Collection
Washington, D.C. – The National Consumer Law Center, on behalf of its low income clients, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Center for Responsible Lending, Consumer Federation of America, and the National Association of Consumer Advocates, expressed relief that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final debt collection rule drops or punts on some of the most harmful parts of its proposal, but advocates still opposed the high call cap that will permit telephone harassment and noted with concern that the...
October 13, 2020
Debt collectors too often lack sufficient documentation to prove ownership of debt
Greater enforcement and stronger laws needed to protect California consumers
OAKLAND, CALIF. – A new report released today by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) finds debt collectors in California may have seized more than $700 million from consumers between 2012 and 2017, even though they frequently lack sufficient documentation to establish the validity and ownership of an individual’s debt.
The CRL report, “The State of Debt Collection in California” finds that the decks are still stacked...
August 5, 2020
WASHINGTON, DC – The Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, NAACP, National CAPACD, and UnidosUS submitted a joint comment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in response to the agency’s Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Supplemental NPRM) that fails to protect consumers against stale, time-barred “zombie” debt, for which the statute of limitations has expired.
The rule supplements a proposed debt collection rule that the CFPB released last year. The Supplemental NPRM gives the green light for debt collectors to...
February 25, 2020
WASHINGTON, DC - On Friday, February 21, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a Supplemental Notice of Propose Rulemaking (Supplemental NPRM), that would provide a path for debt collectors to pursue time-barred debt. The rule supplements a proposed debt collection rule that the CFPB released in May 2019. As proposed, debt collectors could collect debt that is beyond statutes of limitations – as long as consumers receive certain disclosures at the time of initial contact and for any required validation notice. The consumer disclosure would apply only if the debt collector “...