The Federal Trade Commission has issued the National Do Not Call Registry Data Book for Fiscal Year 2019. The Data Book contains information about the DNC Registry from October 1, 2018, to September 30, 2019. It provides information on robocall complaints, the types of calls consumers reported to the FTC, and a complete state-by-state analysis. […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
NPR reported today on 5 ways that the Trump Administration has undermined the Affordable Care Act. Among the takeaways: Overall, [Professor] Nicholas Bagley says, the ACA has been "pretty resilient to everything, so far, that the Trump administration has thrown at it." Some of Trump's efforts to hobble the law have been caught up in […]
After reading the post below, reader Ted Mermin of California Low-Income Consumer Coalition emailed: Last week the Governor signed a groundbreaking law providing an automatic exemption from bank levy for the last $1724 in a debtor’s account. According to the law’s findings, debt collectors routinely clean out consumers’ bank accounts, leaving nothing to pay for […]
California's Governor Newsom today signed into law legislation intended to to protect consumers from predatory lending practices that create debt traps for families already struggling financially. The bill bars payday lenders from charging high interest rates – which in the past have soared as high as 200 percent – on loans between $2,500 and $10,000. […]
Next week, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger will deliver the statutory “Semi-Annual Report of the CFPB” to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. On his blog, US PIRG's Ed Mierzwinski suggests questions that the committee members should ask, here.
A federal court has entered a temporary restraining order against Utah-based Zurixx, LLC and affiliated companies, which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Utah Division of Consumer Protection (DCP) allege have used deceptive promises of big profits to lure consumers into real estate seminars costing thousands of dollars. The order prohibits Zurixx from making […]
Despite a court order barring the Education Department from collecting on the federal student loans of former Corinthian College students, the agency continued to pursue the debts. Some former students had their paychecks garnished or tax refunds seized by the government. The students' recently moved to hold Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt. DeVos and […]
The House just passed a bill that would restore legal rights to millions of workers and consumers. By a vote of 225-186, the House passed the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act, to ban companies from requiring workers and consumers to resolve legal disputes in private arbitration. Arbitration is a process with no judge, no […]
ProPublica has a new report out today called "The Deadly Race: How Amazon Hooked America on Fast Delivery While Avoiding Responsibility for Crashes." The report explains that "Amazon has built a huge logistics operation in recent years to get more goods to customers’ homes in less and less time. As it moves to reduce its […]
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program encourages graduates to work in public service jobs by forgiving federal student loan balances for borrowers who have made 10 years of payments while in certain public service jobs. In 2018, after the Department of Education forgave few loans, Congress temporarily expanded the program to include more borrowers. According […]