Washington Post columnist MIchelle Singletary warns: "If you use a prepaid card — and millions of you do — take heed, because there’s an effort in Congress to block new rules that would give you the kind of federal protections afforded to debit and credit card users. Her full column is here.
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
The Washington Post reports: Eager not to be the next Wells Fargo, some other big banks say they are examining their own practices against the board report and actively looking for ways to avoid any sales issues before becoming engulfed in a similar kind of scandal. … Wells had by far the most aggressive sales […]
In 2016, the CFPB issued a rule addressing prepaid cards, which are cards that work like debit cards but are not associated with a bank account. Prepaid cards include but are not limited to what we think of as gift cards; some employers pay their workers with prepaid cards. As the Senate is set to […]
This week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit in a federal district court against the debt collection law firm Weltman, Weinberg & Reis for falsely representing in millions of collection letters sent to consumers that attorneys were involved in collecting the debt. The law firm made statements on collection calls and sent collection […]
The New York Times reports: Low-income people and older Americans would find it more difficult to win lawsuits for injuries caused by medical malpractice or defective drugs or medical devices under a bill drafted by House Republicans as part of their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. The bill would impose new limits on […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity is charged by statute with “providing oversight and enforcement of Federal laws intended to ensure the fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory access to credit for both individuals and communities.” Today, the CFPB issued its 2016 Fair Lending Report. The report is here.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday issued a proposal to facilitate compliance with the 2015 updates to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) rule. The proposed changes would help financial institutions comply with the 2015 HMDA Final Rule by clarifying the information they are required to collect and report about their mortgage lending. HMDA, which […]
From a New York Times op-ed today: When you bite into a piece of fruit, it should be a mindless pleasure. Sure, that steroidal-looking strawberry with a toothpaste-white interior doesn’t seem right to begin with. But you shouldn’t have to think about childhood brain development when layering it over your cereal. The Trump administration, in […]
The Washington Post reports that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday withdrew a series of policy memos issued by the Obama administration to strengthen consumer protections for student loan borrowers. The Education Department is in the middle of issuing new contracts to student loan servicing companies that collect payments on behalf of the agency. These […]
An op-ed on the Washington Post's website today uses the United Airlines incident as a starting point to discuss lack of consumer choice in today's world. We are told that this is the era of the empowered consumer: The savvy shopper has oodles of time to browse around, comparing prices among various retailers, perhaps consulting […]