To Tell the Truth: CFPB Edition

Have you ever heard of or watched To Tell the Truth? It’s a TV gameshow where three people claim to be the same person. Panelists take turns asking questions about their subject or occupation and then try to guess who is telling the truth. It was originally on back in the late 1950-60s. I remember watching it and the old reruns when I was a kid. Evidently it’s been brought back more than once and is now on again—who knew?

Anyway, this morning, when I was reading the news, I found a couple of interesting articles about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that reminded me of this TV show.

In case you haven’t been following the CFPB closely, its director, Richard Cordray, recently stated  (less than 2 weeks ago) he was going to step down from his position by the end of the month. Cordray was appointed by President Obama as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2012) and his term wasn’t officially set to end until July. Since his announcement there has been a lot of speculation over who would be taking his place.

Here is when it gets interesting. On Friday (Nov. 24) Cordray sent the (U.S.) President a letter saying he would be done working at midnight! Then, this morning (Monday, Nov. 27th) two people showed up for work there and introduced themselves in To Tell the Truth fashion as the acting director of the CFPB: President Trump’s nominee, Mick Mulvaney, and the person Cordray named as his successor before exiting the position, Leandra English.

I read in an article  by Reuters that English sent an email welcoming everyone back from Thanksgiving break and signed it “acting director”. Mulvaney then countered with an email of his own: “Please disregard any instructions you receive from Ms. English in her presumed capacity as Acting Director.” According to Reuters, Mulvaney also said,” If you receive additional communications from her today….please inform the General Counsel.” On a lighter note, before signing off as “acting director” he invited the staff to pop by his office on the 4th floor and grab a donut.

It makes me wonder if staff members at the bureau are walking around like panelists on the TV show asking the “acting directors” questions.

And even though the Reuter’s article went on to say that CFPB general counsel, Mary McLeod, sent out a memo to the legal division of the CFBP stating that she agreed with the U.S. Justice Department’s opinion that Trump had the power to appoint Mulvaney as the temporary bureau chief, I’m kind of thinking that at some point someone’s got to say, “Will the real director of the CFPB please stand up.”

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 12 years.

Gratitude: The Attitude*

‘Tis the season.  No doubt this is the easiest time of year to get all wrapped up (pun intended), stressed out and overwhelmed.  In addition to the stresses of the holiday season, most companies are preparing for next year so the need to hit the ground running ratchets things up even more.  Of course, let’s not forget the very difficult news we receive in bunches every day. 

Sometimes I liken it to wearing a Velcro suit when the Cottonwood trees bloom.  Where does all this stuff come from?  It seems like it comes from every direction at once, sticks to us, piles up, starts to weigh us down and is nearly impossible to get rid of.

However, more and more evidence seems to be accumulating that something as simple as developing an ‘attitude of gratitude’ can significantly add to our physical and mental health.

A small blurb in the November 25th (2015) edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune by Allie Shah caught my eye. The day of publication is no coincidence of course, but really it takes discipline to create and maintain a focus on being grateful each and day of the year.  She points out, though, that “Gratitude has been the focus of a flurry of recent research on the mind-body connection. Daily gratitude exercises have been linked to reduced levels of depression, anxiety and sleep problems.”  She goes on to cite studies that support gratitude boosting everything from the immune system to improving heart health. 

Of course, here at A. Alliance we have a lot to be grateful for:  our valued customers for one thing. Without you we don’t have a business!  Our team for another, and not only the superb job they do each day but for all the great service they perform to ‘give back’ to the communities we live in. I am very grateful to be part of such a team.

Yet, I would think most of us, even in our hardest moments, would be able to find some other things, perhaps very simple things, to be grateful for.

A while back someone I respect very much said that they made it a daily discipline to write down (not just think about, but write down), each day at least one thing they were grateful for.  So I decided to try that. After more than three years now, I have a list of well in excess of 1,100 things that I have made myself consciously aware of being grateful for.  That sort of knocked me out for a minute, because if I had not put them down in writing in front of me I would never have really fully acknowledged how many things there are each day to be grateful for.  Some days there are three or four, some days many more so the actual number is pretty amazing. They range from the seemingly silly, like ice cream (which I am mightily grateful for), to the highly important like health, shelter, food, clothing clean water and clean air.  This has also taught me to be grateful for one thing in particular—this day.  It is too precious to waste and, really, it is all we are promised. 

So, to close let me offer you a little gift of thanks for reading this blog.  It is a short Sanskrit proverb attributed to the Indian poet and playwright K?lid?sa writing in the fifth century A.D.  It goes like this:

Look to this day,

For it is life,

The very life of life.

In its brief course lie all

The realities and verities of existence,

The Bliss of growth,

The splendor of action

The glory of power—

 

For yesterday is but a dream,

And tomorrow is only a vision,

But today, well lived,

Makes every yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vison of hope.

 

Look well, therefore, to this day.

 

*This blog was originally posted in December, 2015.  Good thoughts, it seems, never go out of date.

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 12 years.

Buyer Beware: Are You Really Financing Fido?

I like to watch a little TV before going to bed at night.  It helps me to unwind.  With Christmas around the corner, I’ve already noticed an uptick in holiday movies.  It’s crazy how many of these combine Christmas and dogs: I Want a Dog for Christmas, A puppy for Christmas, A Dog for Christmas, and there is even one called A Dog Named Christmas.

I know you always hear that Christmas is not the best time to get a new pet and there are many very good reasons why you shouldn’t.  But with that being said, my parents, oh I mean Santa, brought us a puppy for Christmas one year a long time ago.  My perspective as a kid: It. Was. Awesome!

But here’s the thing, if you are planning on expanding your family and getting a new pet this holiday season, buyer beware! I recently read an article by the Federal Trade Commission that warned consumers about pet stores that are leasing pets.  That’s correct, pets for rent! Evidently, people have gone into pet stores to purchase a puppy. And since many are quite expensive—thousands of dollars—the new owners (and I use that term loosely) end up setting up payment plans with the pet stores. They later find out that what they unintentionally signed was actually a leasing agreement.  They did not purchase their new puppy at all, but are leasing it instead.  If they actually want to own it, they must pay extra at the end of their expensive leasing agreement, similar to let’s say a car lease.   

I was stunned when I read that article, I had never heard of anything like this before. It’s not like I didn’t believe the article, but I also thought I’d do a quick Google Search to find out how prevalent this problem is.  What I found out was even more shocking.  Yes, pet leasing is a thing and a lot of people are not happy about it!

During my research I found that each one of these pet leasing stories had one thing in common, a company called Wags Lending.

In an article by Bloomberg, there was this one lady out in California who “purchased” a puppy for $2400.  Later, when the woman and her husband were going over their credit report they saw a charge for $5800 from a company they’d never heard of. After a lot of investigating they found the company Wags Lending had assigned the contract to another firm.  Long story short, when she asked the company how she could owe $5800 for a $2400 dog? They answered, “You’re not financing the dog, you’re leasing.” 

Cat lovers in Florida thought they were buying a kitten for $1700.  Later they found out they were responsible for 32 monthly payments of $129, which equates to $4100.  They were told if they didn’t want to make all the payments, they could just return the rental—their kitten.

The owner of Wags Lending, Dusty Wunderlich, has done is homework and evidently what he is doing is legal—at least so far it is.  He came up with this business back in 2013.  In just over three years, his company has originated 66,000 leases for just over $100 million.  He says the company is transparent about the lease structure in its contract and the company relies on retailers to communicate the terms of the contract which sometimes leads to confusion. “We like niches where we’re dealing with emotional borrowers,” Wunderlich is quoted in the Bloomberg article. But the article also states that if a person feels misled, the company, wants to work out a way for them to get out of the contract.

So, if you are looking to purchase a puppy on payments, please be careful, your new best friend might end up being only a rental.

A. Alliance Collection Agency, Inc. is a full service, licensed accounts receivable management and debt collection agency providing highly effective, customized one on one management and recovery solutions for our business partners.  Founded in northern Illinois in 2005, we have been proudly improving the bottom-line on behalf of our business partners in and around Chicagoland for over 12 years.