An auto finance company and its auto title lending arm must overhaul their collection practices and provide consumers $44.1 million in cash relief and balance reductions to settle charges brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Collections & Credit Risk reported yesterday. The enforcement action, announced Thursday, includes a $4.25 million civil penalty. Westlake Services LLC and Wilshire Consumer Credit LLC allegedly deceived consumers by calling under false pretenses and using phony caller ID information, falsely threatened to refer borrowers for investigation or criminal prosecution and illegally disclosed information about debts to borrowers’ employers, friends and family. The CFPB found that Westlake and Wilshire deceived borrowers into thinking they were being called by repossession companies, other third parties or even the borrowers’ own family and friends. The CFPB’s investigation found that the companies’ debt collectors used a web-based service, Skip Tracy, to place outgoing calls and choose the phone number and caller ID text that the call recipient would see.
