Senators Feinstein (D-CA) and Collins (R-ME) have introduced a bill entitled Personal Care Products Safety Act, which would gives the FDA significantly more authority over cosmetics and personal care products, including the authority to order recalls of dangerous products. The bill would require the FDA to review chemicals used in these products and to provide […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it will host a workshop "to examine competition, consumer protection, and economic issues raised by the proliferation of online and mobile peer-to peer business platforms in certain sectors of the economy, often referred to as the sharing economy.” The workshop will take place on June 9 in Washington, […]
Huffington Post yesterday published a lengthy article about regulation — or lack thereof — of food additives by the Food and Drug Administration. The bottom line: Critics of the system say the biggest concern, however, is that companies regularly introduce new additives without ever informing the FDA. That means people are consuming foods with added […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Navajo Nation yesterday filed suit to shut down a tax-refund scam that allegedly preyed on tribe members in New Mexico by prodding them into high-cost tax-refund-anticipation loans. Consumerist has the story.
Below are recent announcements from the Department of Justice's Consumer Protection Branch. April 13, 2015 Quality Egg, Company Owner and Top Executive Sentenced in Connection with Distribution of Adulterated Eggs April 13, 2015 California Man Sentenced to Prison for Odometer Fraud Scheme April 10, 2015 First Jamaican Man Extradited to the United States in Connection […]
AP, via The Washington Post, reports that President Obama is threatening to veto two bills that, he says, would undermine the Dodd-Frank financial reforms. "One of the bills would exempt some borrowing fees from an existing law aimed at protecting consumers. The second bill would undo a provision in Dodd-Frank that categorized some loans for […]
The New York Times today has an editorial on regulation of dietary supplements and industry capture of the agency. The editorial begins: The Food and Drug Administration’s lethargic regulation of dietary supplements containing a dangerous stimulant described in recent reports in The Times is a classic example of what happens when industry representatives infiltrate the […]
The California Department of Business Oversight announced this week that it has launched an initiative with Bing, Yahoo and Google to halt advertising by unlicensed payday lenders. When the DBO identifies unlicensed online payday lenders, it issues cease and desist orders against them. Under the protocol, when those orders become final, the DBO will notify […]
The FTC's press release explains: The Federal Trade Commission and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office have obtained a court order temporarily halting a fake debt collection scam located in Aurora, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. The defendants are charged with illegally using threats and intimidation tactics to coerce consumers to pay payday loan debts […]
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals this week reversed the dismissal of a class-action case alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by Bank of America and a law firm. The plaintiff alleged that the bank and firm, when they initiated foreclosure proceedings, assessed fees that had not yet been incurred. The court […]