The National Consumer Law Center has posted a compilation of "major consumer protections announced in response to COVID-19," including suspensions on foreclosures, evictions, terminations on telecommunications and utility service, elimination of interest, and forbearance on student loan payments. The webpage is here.
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
A bipartisan group of state attorneys general on Wednesday sent letters to major online retailers urging them crack down on price gouging on their online platforms amid the spread of coronavirus. The 34 attorneys general asked Amazon, Craigslist, eBay, Facebook and Walmart build tools to detect price spikes and create landing pages for people to […]
The Wall Street Journal reports that California passed a new law to cap interest rates—currently at about 37% a year—for some consumer loans. OppLoans, however, is charging 160% on a typical loan in California, using a partnership with a Utah bank to continue selling in the state despite the new rules. OppLoans isn’t the only […]
The Washington Post reports today that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has filed a lawsuit against Fifth Third Bank, alleging the bank’s employees opened fake accounts for customers in order to meet aggressive sales targets. The federal regulator alleged Monday that the bank knew its employees were opening fake accounts since at least 2008 and […]
A nice win today for attorney Kelly Jones and my colleague Adam Pulver in McAdory v. DNF Associates: Reversing the district court’s dismissal of an action under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and remanding, the Ninth Circuit held that a business that bought and profited from consumer debts, but outsourced direct collection activities, qualified […]
… but experts call it opportunistic. The Washington Post explains, here.
President Trump has nominated Nancy B. Beck, a former chemical industry executive, to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent federal agency charged with protecting the public against dangers like toxic substances in products. The New York Times has the story, here.
Two weeks ago, Scott wrote about the decision compelling arbitration in cases against DoorDash. His post explained that, after thousands of workers sought arbitration against DoorDash pursuant to the mandatory arbitration agreement in the company's employment contract, DoorDash refused to pay the fees and then tried to change the arbitration clause in the contract to […]
The Federal Trade Commission reports that consumers reported losing $201 million to romance scams in 2019—up nearly 40% since 2018. The total reflects complaint submitted to the FTC by more than 25,000 consumers.
Arbitration clauses, ubiquitous in financial and telecom services, are increasingly used by sellers of consumer products such as dishwashers and televisions. To get a sense of how often, Consumer Reports looked at the top-selling brands in the 10 product categories receiving the most traffic on its website, plus two types of products designed for safety: […]