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Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
This weekend, the Times ran a pair of pieces that laid out other ways to handle student loans. In America Can Fix Its Student Loan Crisis. Just Ask Australia, Susan Dynarski wrote about how other countries deal with student loans. Here's an excerpt: [T]here is no student debt crisis in Sweden, because payments are spread out […]
by Jeff Sovern As I listen to more of the Chain of Title audiobook, I am struck by how the acts of the robo-signers resemble those of consumers faced with disclosures. Like the consumers, the robo-signers signed the documents without reading them, trusting that the documents presented for their signature were what they should be. […]
Dear Mr Oliver: Your show, Last Week Tonight, has had several entertaining segments on consumer law issues, including debt buyers, credit reports, and student loans. But you're missing out on a consumer law subject that can be quite entertaining (unfortunately), even without your special touch. I refer to consumer disclosures. Some of the aspects of […]
by Jeff Sovern Yesterday the House passed the financial services appropriations bill. Here is how the Appropriations Committee describes the bill's provisions pertaining to the CFPB: The bill includes a provision to increase oversight over the CFPB by bringing funding for the agency under the annual congressional appropriations process, instead of direct funding from the […]
Harvard Law S.J.D. candidate and John M. Olin Fellow Meirav Furth-Matzkin has written On the Surprising Use of Unenforceable Contract Terms: Evidence from the Residential Rental Market. Here is the abstract: This paper explores the prevalence of unenforceable terms in consumer contracts. Taking the residential rental market in the Greater Boston Area as a test […]
Here. He also said that the final arbitration and payday lending rules will come out in the next year or so.
by Jeff Sovern I'm listening to the audio version of David Dayan's book Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street's Great Foreclosure Fraud. A lot of it will be familiar to those who followed media reports of the foreclosure crisis and robo-signing, but having it all pulled together gives it considerable impact, and those who didn't […]
Ari Ezra Waldman of New York Law has written Manipulating Trust on Facebook, 29 Loyola Consumer Law Review. Here is the abstract: Facebook is built on gathering massive amounts of information from its users. To maximize the data it collects, Facebook relies on the trust we have in our friends to encourage us to share […]
by Jeff Sovern The current issue of Consumer Reports cover reads "I kind of ruined my life by going to college." Consumer Reports teamed with RevealNews.org to cover student loans. You can read the RevealNews.org coverage here. Here's the upsetting beginning: A generation ago, Congress privatized a student loan program intended to give more Americans access […]