Shining Spotlight on Racket of Debt Collection

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Household International

$29.7 billion receivables ACORN v. Household Intern, Inc. (June 21, 2002)
2002 WL 1563805, N.D. Cal, 2002.

Household faces Consumer Group Challenge 21 June 2002
The consumer rights organization, ACORN, has filed suit against Household International, Inc. (2002 WL 1563805, N.D. Cal, 2002) alleging predatory lending practices for misleading borrows into refinancing their home mortgages by telling consumers they would save money through the loans. ACORN argues that Household "trapped" consumers in expensive loans through a variety of financial schemes, including pre-payment penalties. A California District court has upheld jurisdiction and the litigation is currently continuing.


10. Bank of America

$26.6 billion receivables
$14,500,000 from Bank of America (formerly NationsBank) to investors in securites

fraud case-- investors deceived into purchase of securities they were led to believe were federally insured.

(Apr-30-02) Nationbank had previously paid a combined $7 multi-million dollar civil penalty to the SEC and other regulators.

Providian

Civil Penalties and restitution order by Comptroller of the Currency and San Francisco Distrct Attorney:Excerpt from statement of Comptroller John D. Hawke Jr. June 28, 2000Statement of Comptroller of the Currency John D. Hawke, Jr."For the past year, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the
San Francisco District Attorney's Office have been investigating
complaints lodged by customers of Providian National Bank. We found that
Providian engaged in a variety of unfair and deceptive practices that
enriched the bank while harming literally hundreds of thousands of its
customers. I am pleased to announce that we have entered into a consent order with
the bank that ensures not only that these practices will come to an end,
but that customers who were harmed will be compensated by Providian.

The
order provides that the bank will pay at least $300 million in restitution
to its customers. ....

When a bank engages in unfair or deceptive marketing practices, it damages
its most precious asset -- the trust and confidence of its customers.


That relationship of trust and confidence is central to the bank’s safe
and sound operation. We will not tolerate abuses that breach that trust
through unfair and deceptive practices.

Consumers should not have to become detectives to find out the true terms
and conditions of their credit card agreement.

They should not discover
after they receive their monthly statement that they have purchased

a $156
credit protection policy that they neither want nor need.

And if they are
promised a promotional bonus for transferring credit balances, they should
receive that bonus -- and not be told after the fact that the program
requires a balance transfer of $10,000..."

OCC Providian Fact SheetOCC Providian Consent Order


Additional Private Litigation Against Providian Results in $105 Million settlement:
Proposed Settlement Approved for Litigation Filed on Behalf of Providian Credit Card Holders.

The settlement proposed for the Providian Financial class actions has been approved by the Court, and necessary follow-up procedures in related cases have taken place. The settlement therefore will proceed, and Class Members can expect that the settlement benefits will be distributed/credited in approximately July 2002. After nearly 18 months of intensive discovery and motion work in the case, a proposed settlement was reached, which will allow for payments to certain Class Members, who are the present or former cardholders of Providian.

Under it, Providian will pay

$105 million

(in cash and credit benefits) to class members to reimburse them for inappropriate fees and charges.

This supplements a settlement with government entities under which

Providian has paid approximately $337 million to cardholders.

Under the settlements in the government and private class actions, Providian also agreed to change certain business procedures and enforce processes to confirm that similar false charges and fees will not be incurred by card holders in the future.

Direct Merchants Bank

On 3 May 2001, The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) entered into a consent order with Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank, N.A. The consent order requires the bank to cease certain practices in the marketing of the bank’s credit cards and to pay approximately $3.2 million in restitution to 62,000 consumers.

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OCC Direct Merchants Fact Sheet


Proposed Settlement Announced in Class Action Filed For Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank Cardholders
March 29, 2002 - A proposed settlement has been announced in the class action lawsuit, originally filed on May 24, 2000, alleging that Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank, N.A. (sometimes known as "DMB")

engaged in overly aggressive and unlawful business practices to cardholders nationwide.

The website for the settlement, which provides all information on it and the full notice and claim form, is at www.creditclaims.com.


First National Bank of Marin

On 3 December 2001 the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) settles case against the First National Bank of Marin, Las Vegas, involving misleading and deceptive marketing of secured credit cards. In a consent order, the

bank agreed to cease practices that the OCC alleged are unlawful or unsafe and unsound and to pay restitution to customers harmed by those practices.

OCC Marin Fact Sheet Excerpt:

First National Bank of Marin markets to consumers with poor or non-existent credit histories.

Many credit card lenders, as a matter of prudent underwriting, will require such consumers to
maintain a savings account large enough to secure the line of credit.

Under the bank’s
program, the funds for the savings deposit are instead charged against the credit line,
reducing the amount of available credit until the charge is paid off.

In the OCC’s view, since January, 1998, the bank has used

false and misleading statements,
in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act

, to induce these consumers to apply for its
credit card and to pay substantial fees.

The bank’s marketing led consumers to believe that
they did not first have to submit funds for a savings deposit in order to receive a credit card
with a usable amount of available credit.

In reality, due to the deposit requirement and fees
charged against the card, the vast majority of applicants received a credit card with little or
no available credit.

Among the practices cited by the OCC:

• Under one program sponsored by the bank, credit card applicants were required to
pay up to $79 in cash to apply for a “guaranteed” card with credit lines between $250 and
$600.

The credit line was secured by a savings deposit of $200 charged against the card
when it was first issued.

In addition, other fees of up to $56 were charged to the card.

NextCard OCC

Closes Internet credit card bank

EXCERPT: OCC Closes NextBank and Appoints FDIC ReceiverNR 2002-09 February 7, 2002WASHINGTON -- NextBank NA, Phoenix, Arizona, was closed today by the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was
appointed receiver.

The OCC acted after finding that the bank was operating in an unsafe and unsound manner and
had experienced a substantial dissipation of assets and earnings through unsafe and unsound
practices.

The OCC also found that NextBank’s unsafe and unsound practices were likely to
deplete all or substantially all of the bank’s capital, and that there was no reasonable
prospect for the bank to become adequately capitalized without federal assistance.

In addition, the OCC found that the bank would be unlikely to be able to pay its obligations
or meet the demands of its depositors in the normal course of business.

After being acquired by NextCard Inc. on September 16, 1999, NextBank pursued

a strategy of
marketing credit cards solely through the Internet.

However, the OCC found that the bank’s
risk management policies and procedures were inadequate and the bank’s assets were of lower
credit quality than initially projected in the bank’s business plan.

The bank failed to
identify the extent of its credit quality problem or to implement effective corrective
measures.

At the OCC’s insistence, the board of directors of the bank adopted a detailed board resolution
on October 26, 2000 that was designed to correct these deficiencies, but the bank was unable
to implement the resolution.

The bank failed to achieve profitability, and the $300 million
in capital that had been provided by the bank’s parent company, NextCard, Inc., was
dissipated through

and high operating expenses.

During the bank’s most recent examination, the OCC determined that the bank was classifying
some delinquent accounts sold into a securitization trust as fraud losses, although the
delinquencies were actually attributable to credit quality problems.

These assets were
being repurchased by the bank at par, a practice that constituted sale of assets with recourse...

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PAR VALUE

Stated or face value of a stock or bond.
It has little significance for common stock.
The par value on bonds specifies the payment at maturity.



Investment
Par Value

1) The face value of a bond.

2) A dollar amount that is assigned to a security when representing the value contributed for each share in cash or goods.

1) The par values for different fixed income products will vary. Bonds generally have a par value of $1,000 while most money market instruments have higher par values.

2) Stocks will typically have a par value of $0.01 or none at all.

See Also: Baby Bond, Denomination, Face Value, Market Value, Maturity date, Original Issue Discount, Stock

Related Links:
What are bonds, and do they belong in your portfolio? Get all the answers here. Bond Basics Tutorial
If you're new to the stock market and want the basics, this is the tutorial for you! Stock Basics Tutorial
Learn the complex concepts and calculations for trading bonds including bond pricing, yield, term structure of interest rates and duration. Advanced Bond Concepts
As they are meant to be held until maturity, complex pricing is not an issue. Read on to find out more. Retail Notes Make Bond Investing Easier





The noun par value has one meaning:

Meaning #1: the value of a security that is set by the company issuing it; unrelated to market value
Synonyms: face value, nominal value



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par value
Par value is a financial term, meaning stated value or face value. From this comes the expressions at par (at the par value), over par (over par value) and under par (under par value). The term "at par" is also used when two currencies are exchanged at equal value (for instance, in 1964, Trinidad and Tobago switched from British West Indies dollar to the new Trinidad and Tobago dollar, and that switch was "at par", meaning that the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago replaced each old dollar with a new).

Par value has several meanings depending on the context, whether used in the equities market, or in the bond markets, and partially also dependent on where in the world the par value term is used.

Equities
Par value of an equity (a stock) is a somewhat archaic concept. The par value of a stock was the share price upon initial offering; the company promised not to issue further shares below par value, so investors could be confident that no one else was receiving a more favorable issue price. This was far more important in unregulated equity markets than in the regulated markets that exist today.

Most common stocks issued today do not have par values; those that do (usually only in jurisdictions where par values are required by law) have extremely low par values, for example a penny par value on a stock issue at USD$25/share.

Preferred stock par value remains relevant, and tends to reflect issue price. The dividends are calculated as a percentage of par value.

Also, par value still matters for a callable common stock: the call price is usually either par value or a small fixed percentage over par value.

In the United States, it is legal for a corporation to issue "watered" shares below par value. However, the purchasers of "watered" shares incur a liability to the corporation for the difference between the par value and the price they paid.

Today, in many jurisdictions, par values are no longer required for common stocks.

Bonds


In the US bond markets, par value is when the price dollars is equal to the face value. A US Treasury note is denominated in units of $1,000, but has its price quoted by common convention in terms of moving the decimal point to the left by one position. A US Treasury note selling at par value would thus be quoted as 100:00, where the two digits to the right of the colon are priced in thirty-seconds of a dollar (i.e., 3.125 cents.) A par value price of 100:00 would thus equate to a price of a note or bond selling at face value of $1000 per US Treasury note. A price of 75:31, on the other hand, would thus equate to a note or bond quoted at a price of (75 + 31/32) x 10, or $759.6875, selling at an obvious discount from its par value of 100:00 for a face value paid upon maturity of the note or bond of $1,000.

Only the market for US Treasury securities still prices using thirty-seconds of a dollar.

All other markets use decimal notation.

The practice of pricing in price per hundreds largely grew out of the practice of pricing British government bonds, which were (and still are today) denominated in units of 100 Pounds Sterling. These notes, originally sold in physical form having gilt-edges and therefore known as Gilts, are priced in similar form as US debt instruments, but are priced relative to their face value of 100 pounds Sterling. There is no subsequent shift of the decimal point applied in the pricing of such debt instruments as in the US. In the UK bond markets, par value is when the price per 100 Pounds Sterling note or bond is equal to the face value.

A par value of 100.00 for a note or bond means only that the note or bond is selling for the face value paid upon maturity of the note or bond. It can (and does) have different absolute values per Note or Bond depending on the conventions of the particular market and country in which such a par value is quoted.

References
http://riskglossary.com has a detailed article on par values.

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Originally Posted by charlesa6

Wow!! Believe it. They just keep ripping off the consumers of their labor.

Glad to have you here.
Your name is associated to me with high, quality posts
on economics' matters and I, recommend all to read them,
as, my goal is for all to

empower themselves with much
knowledge and sources of value

and such are encouraged to be
explored as our strength is:

in unity and sharing knowledge.

The more is the better - almost like with oxygen.

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What is the OCC?


The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury.

The OCC charters, regulates, and supervises over 2,500 national banks and their operating subsidiaries

to ensure a safe, sound and competitive national banking system that supports the citizens, communities and economy of the United States. The OCC also supervises federally licensed branches and agencies of foreign banks. The national banks fund the OCC through assessments paid by the banks based on their assets and fees they pay for special services.

What Is a National Bank?

A national bank is a financial institution chartered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

National banks can usually be identified because they have the words "national" or "national association" in their titles or the letters N.A. or NT&SA following their titles.

National banks represent about 28 percent of all insured commercial banks in the United States, holding 57 percent of the total assets of the banking system.

What Is an Operating Subsidiary of a National Bank?


National banks conduct some of their banking activities through companies called operating subsidiaries.

These subsidiaries are companies that are owned or controlled by a national bank and that, among other things, offer banking products and services to consumers such as

loans, mortgages and leases.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency supervises and regulates many of these operating subsidiaries.

OCC has created a database of the operating subsidiaries that do business directly with consumers for the national banks OCC regulates.

The information provided in the report is updated annually by the national banks as of December 31.

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The OCC regulates only national banks and their operating subsidiaries, not all types of financial institutions.

Pursuant to Federal law, national banks may have subsidiaries, such as securities brokers, providers of investment advice, or insurance brokers, that are regulated by another regulator and not the OCC (such as the SEC, state insurance or securities regulators, or the Federal Reserve).

You can find out more about these other regulators by contacting them by phone or visiting these Web sites:



Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for insured state chartered banks that are not members of the Federal Reserve System and insured branches of foreign banks.



Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System for state-chartered banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System, for bank holding companies, Edge Act and agreement corporations, and branches and agencies of foreign banking organizations operating in the United States and their parent banks.

Office of Thrift Supervision for federally chartered savings associations, federal saving banks, and SAIF-insured state chartered savings associations.

National Credit Union Administration for credit unions.


Conference of State Bank Supervisors for information about state-chartered banks and thrifts.


National Association of Attorneys General (http://www.naag.org/) for information about state consumer protection.


Securities and Exchange Commission for administration of the federal securities laws.


The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regulates the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), which governs the information on the nature and costs of certain mortgage related settlement charges.


National Association of Insurance Commissioners (http://www.naic.org/) for information about state regulated insurance activities.

Information reported to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System about banks and their subsidiaries that are part of a bank holding company structure.

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Legal and Regulatory
OCC Law Department


The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, established in 1863, is a bureau of the Treasury Department. The Comptroller of the Currency is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for a term of five years. The Office's principal function is the supervision of the national banking system. A staff of over 1,800 bank examiners performs the statutorily required regular examinations of more than 2,100 banks subject to the Comptroller's supervision. The OCC is in the forefront of contemporary issues in the financial services industry, developing banking regulations and legislation to modernize banking law, and streamlining regulatory processes.

The Law Department, which is managed centrally by the Chief Counsel's office, consists of seven legal practice areas located in the Washington headquarters office and general practice offices in each of the four district office locations.

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Litigation (LIT) 202-874-5280



The principal duties of the Litigation Division fall into six categories:

Representing OCC in court

Federal courts - in actions dealing with national bank powers and banking issues, OCC has the statutory right to represent itself (as opposed to relying on the Department of Justice) in all federal courts except the Supreme Court.

Cases handled by the Litigation Division in federal courts include such varied subjects as national bank powers, preemption of state law, claims challenging OCC enforcement and bank resolution actions, and OCC decisions, orders and regulations.

State courts -

seldom if ever is OCC a party in state court.

Frequently, however, issues presented in state court touch upon OCC or other federal regulations, OCC interests, or important elements of national bank powers and operations.

In such cases the Litigation Division often finds it necessary or helpful to file a brief or letter informing a state court of OCC's position on some specific legal issue.

Representing OCC in the administrative phase of personnel -EEO and MSPB- actions.

Administering OCC's regulation of 12 C.F.R. Part 4, subpart C, regarding confidential supervisory information.

This involves analyzing and responding to requests for such information, responding to subpoenas for such information, and informing courts of OCC's regulation in cases where such information is sought to be obtained directly from a bank or other non-OCC party.

In administrative enforcement actions brought by OCC's Enforcement and Compliance Division, advising the Comptroller regarding administrative law judge decisions appealed to the Comptroller, and drafting the Comptroller's decision document in such instances.

Providing litigation risk advice, whenever requested, on all relevant topics including bank powers, preemption, enforcement and problem bank resolution, and personnel matters.

Preparing the legal memoranda necessary for the preparation of problem bank resolutions.

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Interest on Lawyers Trust Account Board/NOW Accounts.

Interest-bearing negotiable order of withdrawal

(“NOW”)

accounts may be established

at national banks

for the purpose of:

receiving and holding

qualified trust funds deposited under:

the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Interest

on Trust Account Program for

the Minor Judiciary.

OCC Interpretive Letter No. 1017 (January 28, 2005).

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Daily Meditation for this 2006-08-10.

"‘Seek the kingdom of God and his justice,’ said Jesus,
meaning
that the kingdom of God
has a special justice
which is not of this earth.

Here on earth, as soon as a man lodges a complaint,
even if it is over the smallest matter

(someone has trespassed
on his land…,
someone has not paid him the exact amount…,
someone has insulted him…),

the full force of the law is with
him, and the other is convicted.

But there is no human justice
to reward those who are good and generous,
who bring peace everywhere they go.

Earthly justice usually serves to protect
what is most selfish and petty in human beings.

Man’s higher nature is not recognized
and is even scorned and trampled underfoot.

Someone who is honest and unselfish is a nuisance,
and everyone tries to get rid of him
so they can get on with
their shady dealings in peace.

Well, this is unacceptable
in the kingdom of God!"


Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov

Some more on wisdom of this sage is, also, at:

http://www.suijuris.net/forum/genera...esoterica.html