JPMorgan to pay more than $125 million to settle credit card debt probes

Reuters: JPMorgan Chase & Co. has agreed to pay at least $125 million to settle probes by U.S. state and federal authorities that the bank sought to improperly collect and sell consumer credit card debt, according to people familiar with the matter. The settlement also includes about $50 million in restitution. The nation’s largest bank has been accused of relying on robo-signing and other discredited methods of going after consumers for debts they may not have owed and for providing inaccurate information to debt buyers. The states will split some $95 million, while the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will get $30 million, the people said. A spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who has been leading a group of states in probing JPMorgan’s debt sales and collection actions, declined to comment.

Major job cuts expected at Microsoft

The New York Times: Microsoft plans to announce a major new round of layoffs as early as today, as the company seeks to further cut costs in a shifting technology landscape. The layoffs are in addition to the approximately 18,000 employees that Microsoft said it planned to let go a year ago. The new job cuts are expected to affect people in Microsoft’s hardware group, among other parts of the company.

Time Warner Cable owes $229,500 to woman it would not stop calling

Reuters: Many people dislike receiving robocalls. Araceli King of Irving, Texas, disliked receiving 153 of them from a single company. Time Warner Cable Inc. must pay King $229,500 for placing 153 automated calls meant for someone else to her cellphone in less than a year, even after she told it to stop. In awarding triple damages of $1,500 per call for willfully violating that law, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said “a responsible business” would have tried harder to address the problem.