Payday lender pays $100,000 fine

The Bureau has announced a settlement with Cash Tyme, a payday retail lender with outlets in Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Cash Tyme is the operating name for CMM, LLC, and its wholly owned subsidiaries in those states. The CFPB found that Cash Tyme:

• Failed to take adequate steps to prevent unauthorized charges;
• Failed to promptly monitor, identify, correct, and refund overpayments by consumers;
• Made collection calls to third parties named as references on borrowers’ loan applications that disclosed or risked disclosing the debts to those third parties, including to borrowers’ places of employment as well as to third parties who were themselves harassed by such calls;
• Misrepresented that it collected third-party references from borrowers on loan applications for verification purposes, when in fact it was using that information to make marketing calls to the references; and
• Advertised unavailable services, including check cashing, phone reconnections, and home telephone connections, on the storefronts’ outdoor signage

Under the terms of the consent order, Cash Tyme must, among other provisions, pay a civil money penalty of $100,000.