Scenario 3

Scenario 3.5. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau settled a claim with the Bank of America for deceiving customers and unfairly billing them for services such as credit monitoring and identity theft protection. Bank of America agreed to provide refunds to 2.9 million people and pay $45 million in fines for their illegal credit card practices. Their deceptive practices dated to 2000 where they had billed customers for products such as "Privacy Guard" or "Privacy Assist" without first obtaining authorization for the products. The $45 million in fines includes $25 million as a civil penalty that will be paid to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and $20 million to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Bureau also claims that Bank of America deceived about 1.4 million customers into making about $268 million in payments by, among other things, improperly telling them the first 30 days of coverage were free or the benefits were greater than existed. Refer to Scenario 3.5. Bank of America is interested in helping people understand their money and how to build Better Money Habits™. They are working to connect customers, clients, employees and communities to the tools, products, and education they need to help make their financial lives better. The Bank of America has partnered with Khan Academy to launch BetterMoneyHabits.com where free content is available to anyone via a self-paced learning experience to explain the complex concepts of financial matters. The partnership between Bank of America and Khan Academy to provide financial literacy through the website BetterMoneyHabits.com reflects the importance of ______ as an environmental factor.

A) technological
B) economic
C) political
D) legal and regulatory