Credit monitoring services and other credit card add-on products continue to cause big trouble (and big fines) for the big issuers.
“Nine million credit card customers will receive refund checks from Citigroup after U.S. regulators forced the bank to repay $700 million and fined it $70 million for illegal and deceptive practices.
The order, coming from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is the latest multimillion dollar settlement against the largest credit card issuers for their role in selling “add-on” products to customers, such as credit score monitoring or “rush” processing of payments. Bank of America reached a similar, slightly larger settlement with regulators in 2014 and JPMorgan Chase was fined in 2013.”
The deceptive nature of these products and services, prohibited under UDAP rules, has been at the heart of this and other recent regulatory actions.
Overview by Alex Johnson, Sr. Analyst, Credit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Service
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