The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) yesterday announced two winners of its contest seeking ideas to block illegal robocalls. The two winners will receive $25,000 each. Both of their solutions "focus on intercepting and filtering out illegal prerecorded calls using technology to 'blacklist' robocaller phone numbers and 'whitelist" numbers associated with acceptable incoming calls. Both proposals […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
Last year, Charles Schwab modified its customer account agreements to prohibit class-action suits and bar consolidation of individual arbitrations. FINRA — the financial industry regulatory authority — then charged Schwab with violating FINRA's rules. As we previously reported, Schwab challenged FINRA's action in district court, but the court dismissed the suit for failure to exhaust […]
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray spoke today at the the CFPB Advisory Board's first meeting of 2013. He discussed the CFPB's current priorities, including unequal access to credit for minorities, deceptive marketing of consumer financial products, and debt traps. He also touched on the Bureau's efforts to be transparent, to respond to consumer […]
In a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Massachusetts Secretary William Galvin is asking the SEC to consider a ban on binding pre-dispute arbitration clauses in investor advisor contracts, citing a survey that found them prevalent in contracts between investment advisers and their clients. In the alternative, Galvin asks that the SEC undertake […]
We have blogged several times (here, here, here, here, and here) about the Federal Trade Commission's challenges to "pay-to-delay" settlements between brand-name and generic drug companies, in which the brand-name company pays the generic to delay selling a generic equivalent of the brand-name drug. The Legal Times reports that the new chair of the Senate's […]
Journalist and consumer advocate Christopher Elliott has this article in Sunday's Washington Post about the high cost of using a credit card to charge a call on a public pay phone. According to the article, the posted rate applies only to coin payment, and the rate for credit card calls is typically not posted at […]
The Federal Trade Commission yesterday announced the results of an empirical study of companies that are in the business of buying consumer debts and trying to collect on them. The study looked at more than 5,000 portfolios containing nearly 90 million consumer accounts with a face value of $143 billion. In its report, The Structure […]
Michigan State University College of Law Professor Mark Totten has written Credit Reform and the States: The Vital Role of Attorneys General after Dodd-Frank. Here is the abstract: Congress employed multiple strategies in the wake of the Great Recession to provide greater protections for consumers in the financial marketplace. One strategy aimed at agency design […]
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit held this morning that the Constitution permits “recess appointments” only during the Recess between Sessions of Congress and only for positions that become vacant during the Recess. The opinion conflicts with a 2004 decision of the Eleventh Circuit. The DC case arises from a challenge to […]
Alabama-based bank Regions Financial Corp. has agreed to stop offering payday loans in North Carolina. Although North Carolina has banned payday loan shops or Internet services, federal law allows a bank to make those loans if allowed in the bank’s home state. This article from the Charlotte Post has the details. Payday loans are made […]