{"id":9007,"date":"2012-10-03T12:01:41","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T19:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=9007"},"modified":"2012-10-03T12:01:42","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T19:01:42","slug":"a-reason-to-support-elizabeth-warren","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/03\/a-reason-to-support-elizabeth-warren\/","title":{"rendered":"A Reason to Support Elizabeth Warren"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">One of the key Senate Races this year is in MA between Scott Brown (I) and Elizabeth Warren.&#160; There are many compelling reasons to support Warren, because Scott Brown is the poster child for Bankster bought legislators.&#160; Most compelling, however, is Elizabeth Warren\u2019s legacy that is helping all Americans.<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline; float: right\" title=\"CFPBWarren\" alt=\"CFPBWarren\" align=\"right\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/CFPBWarren.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"400\" \/>This is why banks are so desperate to elect Mitt Romney and get rid of Dodd-Frank. One of the most effective parts of Dodd-Frank is the CFPB &#8212; thank you, Elizabeth Warren!<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Today the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.consumerfinance.gov\/pressreleases\/cfpb-orders-american-express-to-pay-85-million-refund-to-consumers-harmed-by-illegal-credit-card-practices\/\" target=\"_blank\">CFPB announced<\/a><font color=\"#0066cc\"><\/font> that they have ordered American Express to pay $85 million in restitution to customers who were harmed by illegal credit card practices along with a $27.5 million dollar civil penalty.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Amex was very naughty, it seems. According to the CFPB, these were a few of their sins:<\/font><\/p>\n<ul style=\"line-height: normal; margin-top: 0in; padding-left: 0px; unicode-bidi: embed; direction: ltr; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.375in\" type=\"disc\">\n<li style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; vertical-align: middle\"><span style=\"font-family: \"><strong><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Deceived consumers who signed up for the American Express \u201cBlue Sky\u201d credit card program:<\/font><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-family: \"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\"> Consumers were sometimes led to believe they would receive $300 in addition to bonus points if they signed up for this American Express Centurion Bank program. But consumers who met the qualifications did not receive the $300. This violates federal laws prohibiting deceptive practices. <\/font><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; vertical-align: middle\"><span style=\"font-family: \"><strong><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Charged unlawful late fees:<\/font><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-family: \"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\"> American Express Centurion Bank and American Express Bank, FSB billed late fees on certain cards based on a percentage of the debt in violation of the Credit CARD Act. <\/font><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; vertical-align: middle\"><span style=\"font-family: \"><strong><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Unlawfully discriminated against new account applicants on the basis of age:<\/font><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-family: \"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\"> American Express Centurion Bank used a credit scoring system that treated charge card applicants differently on the basis of age. For a period of time, the bank did not fully implement the system for applicants over the age of 35. This violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act because it requires credit scoring systems that take age into account to be properly designed and implemented. <\/font><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; vertical-align: middle\"><span style=\"font-family: \"><strong><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Failed to report consumer disputes to consumer reporting agencies:<\/font><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-family: \"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\"> American Express Centurion Bank and American Express Bank, FSB failed to report the existence of certain customer disputes to credit bureaus, which is a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. <\/font><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; vertical-align: middle\"><span style=\"font-family: \"><strong><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Misled consumers about debt collection:<\/font><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-family: \"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\"> All three of the American Express subsidiaries deceived consumers into believing there were certain benefits to paying off old debt. Consumers were wrongly told that if they paid off the old debt, the payment would be reported to credit bureaus and could improve their credit scores. In fact, American Express was not reporting the payments and the debts were so old that even if they had tried to report them, many of the payments would not have appeared on these consumers\u2019 credit reports or affected their credit scores. American Express also told some consumers that a portion of their debt would be waived or forgiven if they accepted certain settlement offers. But for customers who applied for a new American Express card, the company was not really forgiving or waiving the debt. <\/font><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; margin: 0in; font-family: \"><font style=\"font-size: 12pt\">To remedy this, Amex will pay customers the $300 they never received as a credit to their account, late fees charged improperly will be refunded, and remedies to those customers misled into thinking their debt would be forgiven will be put in place\u2026 [<span><em>emphasis original<\/em><\/span>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/crooksandliars.com\/karoli\/cfpb-nails-amex-deceptive-consumer-practice\" target=\"_blank\">Crooks and Liars<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">If there is anything Banksters hate more than having to obey the law, it is being prevented from stealing from their customers.&#160; Scott \u201cBankster Boy\u201d Brown wants to repeal Dodd-Frank and dismantle the CFPB.&#160; Of course this is a good reason to oppose every Republican.&#160; Republicans govern exclusively for the benefit of the 1% and corporate criminals.&#160; <strong>They do NOT represent YOU!<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the key Senate Races this year is in MA between Scott Brown (I) and Elizabeth Warren.&#160; There are many compelling reasons to support Warren, because Scott Brown is the poster child for Bankster bought legislators.&#160; Most compelling, however, is Elizabeth Warren\u2019s legacy that is helping all Americans. This is why banks are so <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/03\/a-reason-to-support-elizabeth-warren\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}