Here. Excerpt: Thousands of angry consumers and business representatives have flooded the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with comments on its May proposal to block companies from forcing customers to take disputes to arbitration instead of joining group lawsuits. Sentiment in the unusually high number of comment letters, more than 8,380 have already been filed though […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern Here, titled The Risks of Unfettered Capitalism. The first and last paragraphs read: Capitalism may be the best economic system ever devised, but one of its drawbacks is that it provides financial incentives to harm and even kill people. Just ask those people who say they have been victimized bycigarettes, predatory lenders, Volkswagen diesel […]
by Jeff Sovern As reported by the Times last week, patients who are held at a hospital for "observation," even if that observation lasts days, but not formally admitted, and later released to a nursing home, won't have their stay in the nursing home covered by Medicare. That stay can cost tens of thousands of dollars. So Congress passed a […]
by Jeff Sovern Recently I saw an off-Broadway play by Norman Shabel, A Class Act. Shabel is a longtime practicing lawyer and the play is about negotiations to settle a toxic waste class action case (not a consumer case). Nevertheless, the lawyers note that the case can proceed as a class action because the victims–people […]
He writes that "Both books examine the intersection of competition, privacy and consumer protection law." One is Big Data and Competition Policy, written with Allen Grunes. Here's a description from Amazon's web site: Big Data and Big Analytics are a big deal today. Big Data is playing a pivotal role in many companies' strategic decision-making. […]
by Jeff Sovern Here, an op-ed by people from Ohio State, Catherine Montalto, Associate Professor of Consumer Sciences, and Anne McDaniel , Senior Associate Director there. Excerpt: [D]ata from our study showed over half of student loan users tried to borrow as little as possible (52 percent). Additionally, 38 percent considered the total amount of debt that […]
Here. Excerpt from the Issue Brief: Although opponents of financial reform often claim that it has harmed community banks, a closer and more comprehensive review of the economic evidence shows that community banks remain healthy. Critics typically point to declining numbers of community banks as evidence that new regulatory requirements are too restrictive. In reality, […]
We received the following announcement: Consumer Protection and Economic Development July 16th to July 19th, 2017; Porto Alegre (UFRGS), Brazil The Conference celebrating the 25th year of IACL will begin an Opening Session with its Founders, on the Sunday of July 16th, 2017, from 5PM to 8PM, and a Welcome Cocktail. The Conference will run from Monday, […]
by Jeff Sovern Consumers have no legal obligation to pay time-barred debts and suing on such a debt or threatening to sue on one violates the FDCPA. But are consumers ever better off, aside from feeling better for meeting their obligations, by paying such debts? When a statute of limitations is less than seven years, as is […]