Six former credit union employees have been banned by the NCUAfrom participating in the affairs of any federally insuredfinancial institution.
Rebecca Andino, former employee of Southern Delaware PostalEmployees Federal Credit Union, Houston, Del., was convicted oftheft and sentenced to six months supervised work release, 12months supervised probation and required to pay $54,800 inrestitution.
Rhonda Campbell, former employee of North Star Federal CreditUnion, Lima, Ohio, was convicted of credit union embezzlement andsentenced to eight months in prison, supervised release for fiveyears and pay $105,000 in restitution.
Richard James Ditzel, former employee of Capital Power CreditUnion, Sacramento, Calif., was convicted of embezzlement andsentenced to 33 months in prison, 60 months of supervised releaseand ordered to pay $478,992 in restitution.
Richard A. Lange, former president of Financial One Credit Union,formerly First Community Credit Union, Columbia Heights, Minn., wasconvicted of embezzlement and filing false tax returns. He wassentenced to 21 months imprisonment, three years probation andordered to pay $249,691 in restitution.
Sharon Quattrone, former employee of CCSE Federal Credit Union,Salamanca, N.Y., was convicted of making a false statement to afederal credit union and was sentenced to three years supervisedrelease.
Hyacinth Richardson, former manager of Mid Island Federal CreditUnion, St. Croix, Virgin Islands, signed an order of prohibitionwithout admitting or denying fault to avoid the time and cost oflitigation.
Violating a prohibition order can be punished by imprisonment and afine of up to $1 million.

CUNA, NASCUS Urge FTC to Exempt
State CUs From Mortgage Rules

State-chartered credit unions shouldn't have to comply with anyfuture rules designed to protect against predatory lending orrevamp the mortgage lending process because they are alreadysubject to vigorous state regulations and would be at a competitivedisadvantage.
That's the argument put forth in separate letters to the FTC byCUNA and NASCUS about proposed regulations the agency isconsidering that are aimed at decreasing the number of problemsthat consumers have with financial institutions.
“Credit unions have not been the source of problems for home loanborrowers and do not need additional rules to ensure that they actin their members' best interests,” wrote CUNA Senior AssistantGeneral Counsel Jeffrey P. Bloch. He added that state-chartedcredit unions would be “needlessly subjected to new regulatoryburdens that will add to their compliance costs.”
He also urged the FTC not to favor certain types of loans overothers and not to ban certain kinds of variable-rate mortgage loansbut suggested that the agency ban loans with negative amortizationfeatures.
NASCUS Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Brian Knightwrote that if state-chartered credit unions were included in thenew rules, it would be “inequitable because there is lesslikelihood of similar regulations being promulgated by the federalbanking agencies.”
He added that because of the strong state regulations that are inplace, “it is dubious that including depository institutions withinthe scope of this rulemaking will produce any substantive benefitto consumers. However, there is the potential that inclusion couldconfuse consumers.”

IRS Warns About Identity Scams

The IRS urged consumers to be wary of identity theft scams thatuse the IRS name, logo or Web site or those of the TreasuryDepartment.
These are designed to trick people into revealing personal andfinancial information, such as credit card numbers and passwords,bank account numbers and Social Security numbers.
The IRS doesn't discuss tax information by e-mail and urges peopleto avoid falling for some of these schemes:
o Making Work Pay refund-This phishing e-mail, which claims to comefrom the IRS, references the president and the Making Work Payprovision of the 2009 economic recovery law. It says that there isa refundable credit available to workers, consumers and retireesthat can be paid into the recipient's bank account if the recipientregisters their account information with the IRS.
o Inherited funds, lottery winnings, cash consignment-In thisphishing scheme, recipients receive an e-mail claiming to come fromthe U.S. Department of the Treasury notifying them that they willreceive millions of dollars in recovered funds or lottery winningsor cash consignment if they provide certain personal information,including phone numbers, via return e-mail.
o Form W-8BEN-Fraudsters modify a genuine IRS form, the W-8BEN,Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United StatesTax Withholding, to request detailed personal and financialinformation.
o Refund scam-The bogus e-mail, which claims to come from the IRS,tells the recipient that he or she is eligible to receive a taxrefund for a given amount. Taxpayers do not have to complete aspecial form to obtain a refund. Taxpayer refunds are based on thetax return they submit to the IRS.

CUNA, NAFCU Support SBA Change

The Small Business Administration's proposal to extend 7(a)loans to businesses with assets of $8.5 million will help creditunions do more to help jumpstart the economy, CUNA and NAFCU wrotethe agency.
This and other programs have “been very helpful for credit unionsin their efforts to provide credit to their members who own smallbusinesses,” wrote CUNA Senior Assistant General Counsel JeffreyBloch.
He urged the agency to make the change-set to run through September2010-permanent, suggested making the agency's 90% guarantee on allloans permanent and urged additional limitations on fees for SBAlending.
In his letter to the SBA, NAFCU Associate Director of RegulatoryAffairs Tessema Tefferi made the same points and said these changeswill change the current situation in which “federal credit unionparticipation in SBA lending is not at a level that it could andshould be.”
The proposal would make 7(a) loan size standard and would parallelthe standard for its 504 Certified Development Company loan. Thenet worth for the company and its affiliates cannot be in excess of$8.5 million. The average net income after federal income taxesexcluding any carry-over losses for the preceding two completedfiscal years cannot be more than $3 million.

NAFCU Adds Three House Members
To Congressional Caucus Roster

U.S. Reps. Joe Baca (D-Calif.), Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) and RandyNeugebauer (R-Texas) have been added to the list of speakers ofNAFCU's Congressional Caucus.
All three lawmakers have been strong supporters of credit unions,and Kanjorski has been the main sponsor of several pieces oflegislation of importance to the movement, including a bill to liftthe cap on member business loans.
The caucus, which runs from Sept. 20-23, will also feature speechesby NCUA board members and the keynote speaker will be Democraticstrategist and television analyst Donna Brazile.
For more information about the caucus, which will be held at theGrand Hyatt Washington, or to register go towww.nafcu.org/caucus.

NAFCU Compliance Seminar

The Credit CARD Act of 2009, Truth in Savings, and mortgageadvertising are among the topics that will be covered at NAFCU's2009 regulatory compliance seminar.
The seminar will be held in Charleston, S.C., from Oct. 19-22 andwill feature sessions led by attorneys, credit union executives andother experts.
NAFCU's annual event comes at a time when lawmakers and regulatorsare tackling an array of issues relating to financial services ingeneral and credit unions in particular. Seminar participants willreceive instructions about these issues and have opportunity to askquestions.
Participants will also have the chance to meet with peers fromtheir region and learn about what challenges they are facing duringNCUA examinations.
For further information, or to register, go towww.nafcu.org/seminar.