WASHINGTON–A group of Senators has sent a letter to JPMorgan asking if the giant bank is again engaging in so-called “robo-signing” in which legal documents are reviewed and signed by employees who have little knowledge about the cases.
The senators sent the letter to the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, and are asking for a response by Feb. 21.
JPMorgan has been penalized for robo-signing abuses in the past and was punished in 2015 by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and ordered to pay $216-million in refunds and fines for illegally robo-signing court documents and selling bad credit card debt to third-party buyers, reported the New York Times.
The bank was also ordered to permanently stop collections on more than 528,000 accounts and overhaul its practices.
“We are deeply troubled by recent reports that JPMorgan Chase — the nation’s largest bank with over $3.2 trillion in assets — has renewed its predatory practice of robo-signing purported evidence of credit card debt to sue customers during the pandemic,” wrote the six senators, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the Banking Committee’s chairman. The senators were referring to an article by ProPublica and The Capitol Forum that tracked an increase in lawsuits filed by JPMorgan against customers in Florida, New York and Texas.
A spokesperson for JPMorgan told the Times its specialists reviewed routine affidavits for an average of 30 minutes to ensure their accuracy before they were filed in court. The company also informed regulators before it resumed lawsuits against customers in 2019, he said.
“Litigation is always a very last resort for customers who are severely delinquent, generally had a high balance and haven’t agreed to resolve the debt,” the spokesperson said.
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