Latest news with #TCPA
Hindustan Times
11 hours ago
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Credit One Bank $14mn TCPA settlement: How much can you receive and how to file a claim?
Credit One Bank, one of the largest credit card issuers in the US, has agreed to pay $14 million to settle a class action lawsuit. Thousands of people could get up to $1,000 each in compensation. From 2014 to 2019, Credit One Bank and its affiliates allegedly used automated systems to call people without their permission.(Pexels) Here's what you need to know if you think you might qualify—or want to understand why this case is getting so much attention. From 2014 to 2019, Credit One Bank and its affiliates allegedly used automated systems to call people without their permission. That's a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which bans robocalls made without consent. The calls mostly involved payment reminders or marketing, and they targeted both customers and people with no ties to the bank. In many cases, the calls continued even after people asked for them to stop. Instead of fighting the case in court, Credit One Bank agreed to settle, without admitting wrongdoing, and will pay $14 million to end the lawsuit. Also Read: Credit One settlement payment: Here's what to know about eligibility, amount, and time Who can file a claim You may be eligible to join the settlement if: You got an automated or prerecorded call from Credit One or its affiliates between 2014 and 2019 You did not give permission to receive those calls The phone number belonged to you at the time—even if you weren't a customer You don't need to show phone records, though providing proof can help. Settlement managers will check call logs to confirm if your number was contacted. How much you could receive The amount each person gets will depend on how many valid claims are filed. Experts expect payments between $100 and $1,000 per person. According to Selendroid, about $8 to $9 million of the total $14 million will be available for consumers after legal fees and administrative costs are taken out. How to file a claim Once the court gives final approval, an official website will go live with instructions. If your information is in the bank's records, you'll get a notice by email or mail. To file a claim: Go to the website (coming soon) Enter your personal info and phone number Attach any proof, or submit a sworn statement Choose how you'd like to be paid (check, PayPal, or bank deposit) Submit the claim before the deadline—expected to be 60 to 90 days after claims open When to expect payment Timing depends on court approval and how many claims are submitted. Usually: Claims are reviewed in 3 to 5 months Payments begin 6 to 9 months after final approval Be careful—only trust official emails and websites. Don't pay anyone to help you file. This case highlights the importance of laws that protect consumers from unwanted calls. The TCPA gives people the right to control who contacts them, and how. But this case also points to bigger issues. Beyond robocalls, Credit One has also faced criticism for surprise fees, unclear charges, and poor customer service.
Newsweek
a day ago
- Business
- Newsweek
Justice Kagan Says Supreme Court 'Wrong' on Text, History and Precedent
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said the majority was "wrong" on matters of text, history and precedent in a dissent published Friday. The Court ruled that courts are not bound to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which protects businesses and consumers from intrusive telemarketing by prohibiting unsolicited fax advertisements to "telephone facsimile machines." In the 6-3 ruling, liberal Justices Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Why It Matters The Supreme Court's decision could determine the role of FCC rulings in future judicial proceedings. In 2009 and 2010, a subsidiary of health care company McKesson Corporation sent unsolicited fax advertisements to various medical practices, including McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates. McLaughlin sued McKesson in 2014, alleging violations of the TCPA without the notice to opt out required under the statute. In a class-action lawsuit against McKesson, led by McLaughlin, the district court did not distinguish between advertisements received on traditional fax machines and those received through online fax services. A third party with no connection to the litigation petitioned the FCC for a ruling on whether the TCPA applies to online fax services. The FCC ruled that "an online fax service is not a 'telephone facsimile machine.'" The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled against McLaughlin on claims involving online fax services following the FCC's ruling. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that the FCC's decision did not bind the district court and was instead required to interpret the statute independently. What To Know Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who delivered the Court's majority opinion, warned that ruling in favor of McKesson and the FCC would require district courts to show "absolute deference" to the agency. He said the Court sees "no good rationale" for embodying that position on the Hobbs Act, a 1950 law that allows for a court of appeals to review FCC orders. "As McKesson and the Government see things, when the initial window for pre-enforcement review closes, no one can argue in court that the agency's interpretation of a statute is incorrect—no matter how wrong the agency's interpretation might be," Kavanagh wrote. Kagan disagreed. "The majority today is wrong as a matter of text: The Hobbs Act gives the courts of appeals exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of agency action, meaning that district courts have no jurisdiction to do so," Kagan said in her dissent. Kagan said the majority is also "wrong as a matter of history" and "wrong as a matter of precedent" concerning the Hobbs Act. "There is simply nothing in the law to support today's result," Kagan said. Kagan argued that the Court's interpretation of the law prevents it from serving its "intended function." "Today's holding undermines the certainty and finality Congress sought in designing a mechanism for judicial review; it subjects all administrative schemes, and the many businesses and individuals relying on them, to the ever-present risk of disruption," Kagan said. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan sits on a panel at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference in Sacramento, California, on July 25, 2024. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan sits on a panel at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference in Sacramento, California, on July 25, 2024. AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli What People Are Saying Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in the majority opinion: "The Hobbs Act dictates how, when, and in what court a party can challenge a new agency order before enforcement. The Act does not purport to address, much less preclude, district court review in enforcement proceedings." Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissent: "The majority today is wrong as a matter of precedent: This Court has held that the Hobbs Act, like its precursors, sets up a single judicial review mechanism for agency rules and orders, and prevents later collateral attacks on them in other courts." What Happens Next The Supreme Court's decision reversed the ruling made by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Do you have a story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have any questions about this story? Contact LiveNews@
Forbes
5 days ago
- Politics
- Forbes
Texas Supreme Court Holds That Motions Are Not Within The Scope Of The TCPA In Ferchichi
The Supreme Court of Texas. Texas has a modern but non-uniform Anti-SLAPP law known as the Texas Citizens Participation Act ("TCPA") which operates to protect free speech and related rights from the perils of abusive litigation brought to silence or retaliate against the speaker. In fact, the TCPA was one of two Anti-SLAPP laws (the other was California's) that were primarily relied upon in the drafting of the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act ("UPEPA") which has proven to be popular among state legislatures. There have been, however, criticisms of the TCPA arising not so much from the text of the statute itself but rather from misapplications of the TCPA by the lower Texas courts. Today, we see the Texas Supreme Court step in to correct the Texas Court of Appeals on one such issue. The culprit in this case is the phrase "legal action". The TCPA provides for the early dismissal of a legal action if that litigation is based upon the speaker's lawful exercise of their free speech and related rights. The phrase "legal action" is ordinarily understood to basically mean a cause of action, which is basically a vessel found within a petition or complaint that states sufficient facts as would entitle a party to relief. It is very common that several actions be pled within a single petition or complaint based on essentially the same facts, such as with an auto accident case against a teenage driver where one action for negligence might be pled against the driver and a second against his parents for negligent entrustment of the vehicle. There should not be much, if any, confusion as to what a "legal action" means, although the UPEPA decided to use the phrase "cause of action" instead just to eliminate even the possibility of any such misinterpretation. The TCPA defines a legal action as a "lawsuit, cause of action, petition, complaint, cross-claim, or counterclaim", but then goes on to include "any other judicial pleading or filing that requests legal, declaratory, or equitable relief." The purpose of that last phrase is to keep a litigant from filing something that states a legal action but attempting to call it something else, such as a Writ Of Mumbo Jumbo or something unusual. Nonetheless, it is that last phrase which stored up trouble, since a "filing" could be taken to mean a motion that requested some relief (although that is basically what every motion does). Some of the Texas Court of Appeals held in a number of cases that "legal action" could include certain motions, such as discovery motions or motions for sanctions where the party bringing the motion sought monetary relief. The rationale of these courts was along the lines that since one party was trying to get money out of the other, that constituted a "legal action" which brought into play the TCPA. The upshot was that a party faced with a discovery motion seeking monetary relief or a motion for sanctions could challenge the motion itself by bringing a TCPA special motion. The other of the Texas Court of Appeals basically just said, "No, a motion is not a legal action whether it awards monetary relief or not." Eventually, this split of opinions within the Texas Court of Appeals made its way up to the Texas Supreme Court which issued an opinion in Ferchichi v. Whataburger Restaurants LLC, 2025 WL 1350005 (Tex., May 9, 2025), which you can read for yourself here and which we will now examine. After reviewing the split of cases within the Texas Court of Appeals, the Texas Supreme Court then went on to examine the text of the TCPA on this point. Again, the TCPA defines a legal action as a "lawsuit, cause of action, petition, complaint, cross-claim, or counterclaim", but then goes on to include "any other judicial pleading or filing that requests legal, declaratory, or equitable relief." While noting that this last phrase is meant to be broadly interpreted, the Texas Supreme Court also noted that it is meant to be interpreted according to a doctrine of statutory construction known as ejusdim generis. This doctrine basically states that where the legislature has given examples of various things in a statute, and then tacked on something akin to "and like things" at the end, those "like things" must be in the same family as those things which have been listed. Applied here, it meant that the "other judicial pleading or filing" needed to be like a lawsuit, cause of action, petition, etc. To the contrary, the Texas Supreme Court noted: "The motions to compel and for sanctions at issue here, by contrast, are not remotely 'like' a 'lawsuit, cause of action, petition, complaint, cross-claim, or counterclaim.' Rather, they are based on conduct ancillary to the substantive claims in the case' and cannot stand on their own. [] It also did not matter to the Texas Supreme Court that a particular motion sought monetary relief, as that would not drag it under the coverage of the TCPA because those are procedural remedies not directly arising from the cause of action giving rise to the case: "As such, there is no reason to treat a motion to compel that does not seek monetary relief any differently from one that does, at least for purposes of determining whether it constitutes a legal action under the TCPA." Thus, the Texas Supreme Court held that motions did not fall within the ambit of the TCPA and a party cannot properly bring a TCPA special motion to try to get rid of the motion. Instead, a motion will be granted or denied without any regard to the TCPA. ANALYSIS There is not much to say about the Texas Supreme Court's ruling because it is right on target. The only criticism would be towards the particular Texas Court of Appeals which upheld the application of the TCPA to motions, which was frankly just silly from the outset. The good news is that this ruling in Ferchichi should get rid of a substantial number of misuses of the Texas TCPA, which has come under criticism because of these and similar misuses. The problem is not with the TCPA, of course, but with the lower Texas courts which entertain and sometimes endorse these misuses. The only way to stop that is for the Texas Supreme Court to do what is did here, which was to render a corrective opinion. Very likely, the Texas Supreme Court will have to hear a higher volume of TCPA appeals for a while before the Texas Court of Appeals finally gets on board with the program. Implicitly, the troubles of the Texas Supreme Court in herding the wet cats of the lower Texas courts onto the right track would be alleviated were Texas to adopt the UPEPA. This is because the UPEPA has the great benefit of uniformity, meaning that the lower courts could look to opinions from the appellate courts of other states to see what the right answer is, without falling for slick sounding but known to be incorrect arguments brought by creative litigants. But that is for another day.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Total Expert Announces Voice AI Sales Assistant Purpose Built for Mortgage Lending
Agentic technology helps lenders scale growth and improve customer retention by boosting engagements, conversions, and productivity MINNEAPOLIS, June 09, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Total Expert, the FinServ leader in customer engagement software, today announced the debut of its AI Sales Assistant at The Gathering by HousingWire. The new AI-powered assistant is already in private beta with select customers, including several top 10 lenders. Human Like Conversations via Voice/SMS The AI Sales Assistant is not a chatbot retrofitted for financial services—it is an enterprise-grade, agentic AI system, capable of scalable intelligent human-like conversations across voice and SMS. "With over 1.5 million mortgage-specific human-like voice calls successfully completed, the technology has far exceeded everyone's expectations on the impact AI can have," said Joe Welu, Chief Executive Officer at Total Expert. "We believe AI should supercharge people like loan officers who are considered trusted advisors, by keeping the human in the loop in the key moments of the customer journey—like when a borrower is ready to start talking about specific loan options. Many of the other lower-value sales tasks, like following up with cold leads, can and should be handled by an AI sales assistant—allowing them to reach levels of productivity they never considered possible." Unlike most technology vendors that are racing to splash AI onto everything without clear ROI, Total Expert has taken a more deliberate and thoughtful approach to AI by focusing on going deep into important workflows across the customer journey and indexing on the most important business outcomes. AI That Works for Lending Core capabilities of the AI Sales Assistant include: Proactive, timely outreach triggered by borrower intent signals Initiating and following up with prospects through high-quality and brand-aligned voice conversations Voice-based engagement aligned with lender brand standards Capturing key borrower data, including goals and application details Completing handoffs and updates CRM systems with full conversation context Compliant-aware communication with full audit trails and secure encryption With the assistant handling repetitive outreach and qualification tasks, loan officers are freed to focus on what matters most: building relationships and closing applications. Enterprise-Grade Compliance and Data Integrity Total Expert's AI Sales Assistant is built on a foundation of trust, privacy, and control: Independent training for LLMs that never uses customer data Continuous independent training models, meeting FinServ Data Security Standards Encryption at rest and in transit Awareness and perspective for TCPA, and other mortgage-specific regulations Full auditability for communication tracking "We don't bolt on compliance after the fact," said Welu. "We build it in—so lenders can innovate without risking trust or regulatory exposure." Early Results and What's Ahead Currently in private beta with select institutions, the AI Sales Assistant is already driving unprecedented surges in productivity and conversion rates in early use through: Increased speed-to-lead and engagement rates Refined cadence for follow-ups that are often missed or delayed Better-qualified borrowers reaching loan officers at the right moment Higher conversion on lower quality leads The assistant is designed to evolve through real-world use and feedback, enabling lenders to refine agent behavior to align with their unique brand, regulatory guidelines, and sales strategies. See It in Action Total Expert will be showcasing AI Sales Assistant at HousingWire: The Gathering, June 8-11, offering live demos for lenders looking to gain an edge in today's competitive market. To learn more or request a private demo, visit About Total Expert Total Expert is the purpose-built customer engagement platform trusted by more than 200 financial enterprises. Total Expert unifies data, marketing, sales, and compliance solutions to deliver the perfect customer journey across every financial milestone—in any market. Total Expert turns customer insights into actions that increase loyalty and drive growth for modern banks, lenders, credit unions, and insurance companies. View source version on Contacts MEDIA CONTACT Allison
Business Wire
09-06-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Total Expert Announces Voice AI Sales Assistant Purpose Built for Mortgage Lending
MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Total Expert, the FinServ leader in customer engagement software, today announced the debut of its AI Sales Assistant at The Gathering by HousingWire. The new AI-powered assistant is already in private beta with select customers, including several top 10 lenders. Human Like Conversations via Voice/SMS The AI Sales Assistant is not a chatbot retrofitted for financial services—it is an enterprise-grade, agentic AI system, capable of scalable intelligent human-like conversations across voice and SMS. 'With over 1.5 million mortgage-specific human-like voice calls successfully completed, the technology has far exceeded everyone's expectations on the impact AI can have,' said Joe Welu, Chief Executive Officer at Total Expert. 'We believe AI should supercharge people like loan officers who are considered trusted advisors, by keeping the human in the loop in the key moments of the customer journey—like when a borrower is ready to start talking about specific loan options. Many of the other lower-value sales tasks, like following up with cold leads, can and should be handled by an AI sales assistant—allowing them to reach levels of productivity they never considered possible.' Unlike most technology vendors that are racing to splash AI onto everything without clear ROI, Total Expert has taken a more deliberate and thoughtful approach to AI by focusing on going deep into important workflows across the customer journey and indexing on the most important business outcomes. AI That Works for Lending Core capabilities of the AI Sales Assistant include: Proactive, timely outreach triggered by borrower intent signals Initiating and following up with prospects through high-quality and brand-aligned voice conversations Voice-based engagement aligned with lender brand standards Capturing key borrower data, including goals and application details Completing handoffs and updates CRM systems with full conversation context Compliant-aware communication with full audit trails and secure encryption With the assistant handling repetitive outreach and qualification tasks, loan officers are freed to focus on what matters most: building relationships and closing applications. Enterprise-Grade Compliance and Data Integrity Total Expert's AI Sales Assistant is built on a foundation of trust, privacy, and control: Independent training for LLMs that never uses customer data Continuous independent training models, meeting FinServ Data Security Standards Encryption at rest and in transit Awareness and perspective for TCPA, and other mortgage-specific regulations Full auditability for communication tracking 'We don't bolt on compliance after the fact,' said Welu. 'We build it in—so lenders can innovate without risking trust or regulatory exposure.' Early Results and What's Ahead Currently in private beta with select institutions, the AI Sales Assistant is already driving unprecedented surges in productivity and conversion rates in early use through: Increased speed-to-lead and engagement rates Refined cadence for follow-ups that are often missed or delayed Better-qualified borrowers reaching loan officers at the right moment Higher conversion on lower quality leads The assistant is designed to evolve through real-world use and feedback, enabling lenders to refine agent behavior to align with their unique brand, regulatory guidelines, and sales strategies. See It in Action Total Expert will be showcasing AI Sales Assistant at HousingWire: The Gathering, June 8-11, offering live demos for lenders looking to gain an edge in today's competitive market. To learn more or request a private demo, visit About Total Expert Total Expert is the purpose-built customer engagement platform trusted by more than 200 financial enterprises. Total Expert unifies data, marketing, sales, and compliance solutions to deliver the perfect customer journey across every financial milestone—in any market. Total Expert turns customer insights into actions that increase loyalty and drive growth for modern banks, lenders, credit unions, and insurance companies.
