Regulatory: The CFPB’s UDAAP deceptive standard does not require knowledge or intent

This article is the third in a series of six articles concerning UDAAP. Read parts one and two.

As part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Congress empowered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to prohibit consumer financial services companies from, among other things, engaging in deceptive acts or practices related to their consumer financial products and services. The CFPB takes this particular authority very seriously, as a number of major credit card companies learned last summer when they settled with the bureau and other regulators for a collective $500 million at the end of a long investigation involving alleged consumer deceptions by credit card call centers.

That sounds simply awful, doesn't it? Call centers deceiving consumers—we do not want that in our consumer financial services marketplace. But do we really understand what that means? The case raises the question: What is deception?