Briefcase: Bank of America fined for debt collection

WASHINGTON – Bank of America has been fined $30 million by U.S. regulators, who accused the bank of violating consumer protections for members of the military in collecting debts.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a Treasury Department division, announced the civil penalty Friday. The agency says Bank of America has started taking steps to correct the problems and “is committed to taking all necessary and appropriate steps” to do so.

The regulators say the bank violated the law protecting service members by taking improper legal action against military customers for delinquent credit card accounts and overdrafts. The improper practices allegedly occurred from January 2006 to the present.

The OCC also said Bank of America had failed to have effective policies and procedures to ensure its compliance with the law, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

Bank of America Corp., based in Charlotte, North Carolina, said it will continue to improve its compliance with the law.

GM, Subaru added to Takata air bag recall

DETROIT – General Motors and Subaru are adding vehicles to the growing list of models being recalled by 11 automakers due to potentially exploding air bags.

The U.S. government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released the model information on Friday. The vehicles are equipped with air bag inflators made by Takata Corp. of Japan that can inflate with too much force, spewing shrapnel into the passenger compartment.

Six people have been killed and more than 100 injured due to the problem.

Last week NHTSA and the government agreed to double the number of inflators it recalled to 33.8 million. The increase made it the largest auto recall in U.S. history, according to the agency.

The best way to tell if your car or truck is being recalled is to key in the vehicle identification number at https://vinrcl.safercar.gov/vin/. The number is stamped on the driver’s side of the dashboard near the windshield and also is on many state registration cards. Automakers are still posting recall information by number, and the task may take several days or even weeks. So it’s wise to keep checking periodically.

For more details on the recall, go to www.safercar.gov/rs/takata/index.html.

U.S. oil, natural gas rig count drops to 875

HOUSTON – Oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. says the number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. declined by 10 this week to 875.

Houston-based Baker Hughes said Friday 646 rigs were seeking oil and 225 explored for natural gas. Four were listed as miscellaneous. A year ago, with oil prices nearly double the current levels, 1,866 rigs were active.

Among major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas lost four rigs, California declined by three and Arkansas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania each dropped two. North Dakota was down one.

Colorado and Oklahoma gained two rigs apiece. Alaska and New Mexico were up one each.

Kansas, Ohio, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming were all unchanged.

The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.