The National Consumer Law Center issued a report on the impact of debt-collection during the pandemic and state laws that help, or harm, struggling families. From NCLC's press release: As millions of families suffer job loss or struggle to pay bills during COVID-19, states have an important role in protecting them from seizure of essential […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
Eight state attorneys general today filed a lawsuit challenging a new Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation rule that creates a loophole allowing predatory lenders to evade state laws that forbid excessive interest-rate charges. From the California attorney general's press release: "These caps on interest rates play a critical role in regulating payday loans and other high-cost […]
Today, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a proposed rule to overturns the “true lender” rule that courts have used since the early 1800s to prevent evasions of state usury laws. The deadline to submit comments on the OCC’s proposal is September 3, 2020. In a statement, the National Consumer Law Center […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today announced a final rule rescinding payday loans protections that had been issued in October 2017. Among the provisions rescinded are those limiting unaffordable loans that trap families in cycles of debt. The CFPB also announced that it will implement the provisions of the payday loan rule that prevent lenders, […]
As established by the Dodd-Frank Act in 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was headed by a director who could the President could remove only for cause (inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office). The CFPB’s first director was appointed on January 4, 2012. On June 29, 2020, the Supreme Court held in Seila […]
"A federal judge has ordered the Department of Education to cancel the student loans of all 7,200 former Corinthian Colleges students in Massachusetts. This is the first time a federal court has ordered a borrower defense discharge of federal student loans. "The victory in Vara v. DeVos comes nearly two years after the Department of […]
The D.C. attorney general sued four of the world’s largest oil and gas companies — BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell — Thursday, asserting that they have engaged in a decades-long campaign to deceive District consumers about the effects of fossil fuels on climate change. The lawsuit, based on the DC Consumer Protection Procedures Act and […]
The Federal Trade Commission reports that it has received more than 91,000 coronavirus-related complaints from consumers. More than half (47,881) are about fraud.
DC's Attorney General today filed a lawsuit against Elevate, an online lender, for deceptively marketing high-cost loans carrying interest rates far above the District’s cap on interest rates. According to the complaint, Elevate is not a licensed moneylender in the District but offered two kinds of short-term loan products with interest rates of between 99 […]
Bloomberg reports that a "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau task force that has been criticized in the past for its pro-business leanings stands to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars to offer advice on how to 'harmonize and modernize' federal laws aimed at protecting the public." The full story is here.