The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau analyzed several hundred consumer complaints relating to the administration of credit card rewards programs and identified four recurring themes that resulted in consumers not receiving the rewards they were promised: (1) unexpected promotional conditions, (2) devaluation, (3) redemption problems, and (4) revocation. The report is here.
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week granted en banc review in a case called Briskin v. Shopify, to consider whether a state may exercise specific personal jurisdiction over a defendant that unlawfully uses its nationally accessible web platform to extract data from in-state consumers. As reporter Alison Frankel of Reuters wrote, “The court’s […]
The U.S. Supreme Court today, in a 7-2 decision, ruled in favor of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, rejecting a challenge brought by payday lenders to Congress’s decision about how to fund the agency. The case came to the Court after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ unprecedented ruling that funding for the Bureau’s violates […]
On Wednesday, Colorado lawmakers passed a sweeping artificial intelligence regulation bill. The legislation seeks to protect consumers from algorithmic discrimination when AI is used to make life-altering decisions, such as about a person’s employment, education or health care. It also included consumer rights provisions such as the right to know when AI is being used […]
The Department of Education today approved roughly $6 billion in student loan relief for more than 300,000 students who attended The Art Institutes, a network of for-profit colleges that was plagued by fraud allegations before completely shutting down in September 2023. The chain’s parent company, Education Management Corporation, reached a nearly $100 million settlement with […]
The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a ban on consumer uses of methylene chloride, a chemical that is widely used as a paint stripper but is known to cause liver cancer and other health problems. The EPA said its action will protect Americans from health risks while allowing certain commercial uses to continue with robust […]
The Federal Communications Commission announced yesterday that it fined the nation’s largest wireless carriers for illegally sharing access to customers’ location information without consent and without taking reasonable measures to protect that information against unauthorized disclosure. Sprint and T-Mobile – which have merged since the investigation began – face fines of more than $12 million […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a report examining the growth of financial transactions in online video games and virtual worlds. “These platforms increasingly resemble traditional banking and payment systems that facilitate the storage and exchange of billions of dollars in assets, including virtual currencies. However, consumers report being harmed by scams or theft […]
The Federal Trade Commission is sending nearly $62 million in refunds to sellers deceived by advertising and marketing claims made by online real estate business Opendoor Labs, Inc. According to the FTC’s August 2022 complaint, Opendoor cheated home sellers by tricking them into thinking that they could make more money selling their home to Opendoor than […]
The Biden Administration announced on Friday steps to eliminate hidden fees for college students, such as student loan origination fees, college banking fees, and automatic charges for textbooks. The fact sheet, with more detail, is here.