A company called “DoNotPay” operated an artificial intelligence service that it called “the world’s first robot lawyer,” which it claimed “would allow consumers to “sue for assault without a lawyer” and “generate perfectly valid legal documents in no time.” Not surprisingly, the product did not live up to its claims. In late September, the FTC […]
Author Archives: Adam Pulver
In a long-running litigation filed in Pennsylvania federal district court, the CFPB today filed a proposed stipulated order, which, if entered, would largely remove Navient from the federal student loan market, and require the company to pay a $20 million penalty and provide $100 million in relief to borrowers. The case includes allegations that Navient […]
Yesterday, I noted the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had agreed to hear a case involving browse-wrap arbitration agreements. Later in the day, the Seventh Circuit issued a decision concerning one such agreement, finding that a consumer and a home improvement had entered into a valid and enforceable agreement. Adopting case law from the 9th and 2nd […]
In July 2023, an intermediate appellate court in Pennsylvania decided Chilutti v. Uber Technologies. There, the court held that a so-called “browsewrap” arbitration agreement was invalid, and that two conditions are necessary to establish an unambiguous manifestation for assent to arbitration via a registration for a website: (1) explicitly stating on the registration websites and […]
Two consumers sued Experian after discovering the agency, was reporting an automobile loan as “discharged through bankruptcy,” when they had been making payments on the loan for years, and their attempts to correct the issue proved unsuccessful. For some reason, Experian responded by issuing sweeping discovery requests — including broad subpoenas issued to the law […]
Care.com is an online platform that matches child and older adult caregivers with consumers looking to hire such caregivers. In a federal court complaint filed yesterday, the FTC alleges that Care systematically deceived caregivers who were looking for jobs while failing to give families seeking care a simple way to cancel their paid memberships, in […]
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, many consumers have been unable to obtain relief for violations of their statutory rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Yesterday’s decision by the Sixth Circuit in Merck v. Walmart, Inc. is another case in that line. The plaintiff, Thomas Merck, had been extended a job […]
In March, I blogged about the Third Circuit’s decision in CFPB v. National Collegiate Master Student Loan Trust, a long-running enforcement action brought by the CFPB against investment trusts that were created for the purposes of acquiring and servicing student loans, seeking to enforce civil investigative demands. The trusts have now filed a petition for […]
Often, consumers are arguing that they cannot be bound to certain terms because they never saw them, or lacked a sufficient opportunity to review them, before entering into a relationship with a business. Today, the Eleventh Circuit addressed a different scenario — where a company was arguing that the terms and conditions it presented to […]
A home equity line of credit, or “HELOC,” is a loan product that allows a consumer to borrow money, using their equity in their home as collateral. William Lyons had taken out a HELOC from a predecessor to PNC Bank. Years later, PNC withdrew money from Lyons’ deposit account to offset outstanding payments on the […]