The article, Companies use this sneaky pricing trick to overcharge you. One lawmaker wants it banned, is by K.R. Callaway. Excerpt: Last year, the FTC launched an investigation into surveillance pricing, hoping to learn more about how companies were using personal data to change prices. The initial results, released in January, found that retailers were using everything from demographic […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
In May, we posted a link to an article by Charlotte Haendler of Southern Methodist University (SMU) – SMU Cox School of Business and Rawley Heimer of Arizona State University (ASU) – W.P. Carey School of Business, The Hidden Costs of Financial Services: Consumer Complaints and Financial Restitution. Alan Kaplinsky interviewed them for Ballard Spahr’s […]
In the American Banker. How sad that just when the Bureau is most needed, it is hibernating.
Here, by Annie Nova. Here’s a table from the article with some numbers. SAVE is the program that’s essentially ending on August 1; IBR is an alternative that borrowers can enroll in. Estimated monthly student loan payments by income bracket Income-Based Repayment (IBR) vs. SAVE The table shows the changes in monthly payments for student […]
According to American Banker’s Claire Williams, in an article headlined Republicans gear up for Dodd-Frank rollback, Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks said during a hearing yesterday “that he would be open to the idea of a bipartisan commission at the CFPB.” But President Trump claims the right to fire Democratic commissioners on so-called bipartisan commissions, even […]
. . . that will include discussion of the consumer finance industry. Speakers will include several law professors. Ballard Spahr is conducting the webinar. Register here.
Here. The article makes it look like the administration is dedicated to keeping federal employees from working. So much for the promise to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse. Some excerpts: * * * Employees are reluctant even to talk to one another, out of fear that a conversation between two employees would be considered a […]
By Maureen Tkacik and James Baratta, it’s captioned Hardly Workin’. It covers a lot of ground, but here’s one excerpt: In the meantime, formal entries into the CFPB’s consumer complaints database have soared, suggesting that the business of junk fees, predatory terms, and routine swindles is booming just as loudly as the Prospect has been predicting it would since […]
We received the following call for abstracts (apologies for the formatting issues): We are pleased to announce the Eighth Annual Consumer Law Scholars Conference will be held in Berkeley on Thursday and Friday, March 5-6, 2026! Please save the date! The purpose of the CLSC is to support in-progress scholarship, foster a community of consumer […]
At Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast.