Yes! I did. I did get a check from CFPB because of my ethnicity. I wish it would have been much, much more. But I am just as delighted to receive an unexpected windfall :)
Because I am Asian American, last year, I received a letter with a form to fill out naming me as one of the harmed consumers by Ally Financial's mark-up policy.
To enlighten you on how it came about, here is a piece of the article issued by CFPB last year.
"The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Department of Justice (DOJ) today ordered Ally Financial Inc. and Ally Bank (Ally) to pay $80 million in damages to harmed African-American, Hispanic, and Asian and Pacific Islander borrowers and $18 million in penalties.
The CFPB and DOJ determined that more than 235,000 minority borrowers paid higher interest rates for their auto loans between April 2011 and December 2013 because of Ally’s discriminatory pricing system. Today’s orders represent the federal government’s largest auto loan discrimination settlement in history."
When I received a letter last year informing me that I may be eligible for a refund or some sort of settlement, I threw the letter and the forms right into the garbage thinking it was another scam as it asked for some personal information. However, it did not ask for sensitive information like social security and birthdate.
But sometime last year, I got a phone call reminding me to send the form since Ally had agreed to pay the affected consumers. Although I was skeptical, I told the nice lady to send me the package again.
I did some research as to the credibility of this settlement and I found this Article.
Therefore, when I received the second mail, I filled the form out and inserted the completed form into the envelope that came with the package and dropped it in my mailbox.
That little effort was not an exercise in futility after all. With that check, I took my son out to a nice lunch yesterday and there is still some leftover amount for me to enjoy.
What I can glean from this settlement is that CFPB and the Department of Justice do take seriously Fair Lending/Housing Law seriously.
Whoever thought about imposing this mark-up policy for certain ethnic groups within the Ally company must be either out of his mind or out of this world. This was not just an act committed by one person with higher rank. Rather, it could be surmised that it was a policy that reached a concensus among those tho wielded authority.
Fair Housing and Equal Lending.... we should all be aware of this law 
lest pay for the ignorance. "Ignorance of the law excuses no one."
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