The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday announced a settlement with a debt collector after it was accused of a number of violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The collector, Afni, Inc., will pay a $500,00 fine and agreed to update its policies and procedures to ensure the accuracy of the information it reports to the credit reporting agencies.
A copy of the consent order can be accessed by clicking here.
Afni was accused of:
- Furnishing information to credit reporting agencies that it knew or had reasonable cause to believe was inaccurate
- Failing to report an appropriate first date of delinquency
- Failing to conduct reasonable investigations when a debt was disputed to either Afni or a credit reporting agency
- Failing to send required notices about the results of investigations
Most of the alleged violations took place between 2016 and 2017. The collector allegedly furnished payment amounts as $0.00 on 165,000 accounts even though consumers had made payments, and furnished current balances and amounts past due in amounts other than $0.00, even though the accounts had been paid in full on about 72,000 accounts.
When accounts were placed with the collector by one of its telecommunication clients, the client would not often include the date of delinquency. The collector allegedly used the date that the service was disconnected or the date the debt was charged off as the date of first delinquency, even though that date was not accurate, according to the consent order.
“Prior to entering into a consent order with the CFPB, Afni continually invested in the maintenance and enhancement of our compliance management system,” the company said in a statement. “The Consent Order requirements restate remediation which Afni has already pursued after continued cooperation with the CFPB throughout the investigative process. To minimize disruption to our business operations, Afni has chosen to efficiently settle this matter and will focus our efforts on continual improvement of our compliance management system and pursuit of our mission to enable better outcomes through positive and worthwhile engagement with our customers.”
