Month: July 2015

Family fun events scheduled for national NCLR conference

NCLR (National Council of La Raza) will celebrate the influence of the growing Latino community at the 2015 NCLR National Latino Family Expo July 11–13 in Kansas City, Mo.

Home to a strong Latino community with more than a century of history, Kansas City will play host to this exciting event held alongside the 2015 NCLR Annual Conference at the Kansas City Convention Center in Kansas City, Mo. The entire family is invited to a weekend of educational and engaging activities for adults and children alike, all free of charge.

Featuring more than one hundred exhibitors, the NCLR National Latino Family Expo will feature complimentary health screenings, opportunities for visitors to get involved in NCLR’s advocacy work, giveaways, and more. At the Health/Tu Salud Pavilion, Expo visitors will have access to free vision, dental, diabetes, and blood pressure screenings, along with cooking demonstrations. This year, the Expo’s KC Experience Pavilion is bringing back the popular Copa NCLR youth soccer tournament, taking place at the official mobile field of Sporting KC, Kansas City’s professional soccer team.

At the NCLR Family/Familia Pavilion, visitors can learn more and get involved in NCLR’s advocacy work for the Latino community at the Advocacy Central booth. Attendees also have the opportunity to network and discover career and educational opportunities at the Career and Education/Tus Oportunidades Pavilion. At the Community/El Barrio Pavilion, visitors can meet with housing and financial counselors to review attendees’ credit reports and address housing challenges, made possible with support from the U.S. Treasury Department.

In addition to these events, the Expo will feature a host of local musical talent and popular costumed characters, including Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer and Diego along with Donatello and Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, courtesy of Viacom. Doki from the Discovery Channel and the GEICO Gecko will join mascots from KC Sporting and the Kansas City Chiefs, along with the Kansas City Chiefs cheerleaders. Pitching and batting stations will be available from the Kansas City Royals.

The NCLR National Latino Family Expo, title-sponsored by UPS, is a unique and exciting gathering focused on providing activities and resources for the Latino family that are open to the public and free of charge. Composed of six themed pavilions, the Expo offers resources and activities designed to educate, entertain and empower Latino families.

For more information on the national conference, visit www.nclr.org/index.php/events/nclr_annual_conference/.

Consumer settlement made with Chase bank over debt collection practices

Kansas Attorney General today announced a settlement with Chase Bank USA N.A. and Chase Bankcard Services Inc. that is expected to return millions of dollars to affected cardholders nationwide.

Schmidt joined with attorneys general in 47 states, the District of Columbia and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in holding Chase accountable for unfair and deceptive business practices committed while collecting on consumer credit card debt.

Specifically, the states and the CFPB allege that Chase used false and inaccurate affidavits while filing lawsuits and obtaining judgments against credit card consumers and that Chase sold credit card accounts to debt buyers with incomplete or inaccurate information.

The agreement requires Chase to significantly reform its credit card debt collection practices in areas of declarations, collections litigation, debt sales and debt buying. Debt buying involves the sale of debt by creditors or other debt owners, often for pennies on the dollar, to buyers who then attempt to collect the debt at full value or sell it to other buyers. Among other reforms, the agreement requires new safeguards to help ensure debt information is accurate, and inaccurate data is corrected, provides additional information to consumers who owe debts, and bars Chase’s debt buyers from reselling consumer debts to other purchasers.

“Chase’s debt collection practices have harmed Kansas consumers,” Schmidt said. “In several instances, Chase commenced collections proceedings based on information that was just plain wrong. This is bad business practice and an affront to consumers, courts, our laws and fairness.”

Chase has agreed to cease all collection efforts on more than 528,000 consumers, including an estimated 844 in Kansas. Chase sued the affected consumers for credit card debts and obtained judgments between January 1, 2009, and June 30, 2014. Chase will notify affected borrowers of the change and will request all three major credit reporting agencies to not report the judgments.

The agreement also ensures that Chase will fulfill $50 million in consumer restitution through a separate 2013 consent order reached with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Chase estimates that so far it has provided $33,000 in restitution to 35 Kansas consumers.

Kansas consumers eligible for restitution or otherwise affected by the terms of this settlement will be contacted directly by Chase. For additional information, contact the attorney general’s consumer protection division at 800-432-2310 or visit the website at www.InYourCornerKansas.org.