In a speech February 25 at the CFPB's Consumer Advisory Board meeting, CFPB Director Richard Cordray identified nine "key areas where we hope to make substantial progress over the next two years." He also noted, however, that "these goals do not capture all of the important work we are doing." The nine goals are: First, […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Here. Excerpt: In a push for transparency since the 2008 financial crisis, regulators require banks to clearly disclose and explain the terms of just about every financial product, including credit cards and mortgages. But overdraft practices still come with hidden costs and confusing terms, bank customers, lawyers and consumer advocates say. * * * It […]
by Jeff Sovern I've gradually been making my way through Chris Hoofnagle's new book, Federal Trade Commission Privacy Law and Policy (more about that below). For those who want to sample the book before ordering it, Chris has posted the Introduction and an excerpt to SSRN here. The book opens with an interesting history of […]
Here. Excerpt: The U.S. senator from Florida has received more than $4 million from the employees of banks and investment firms like Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) since launching his bid for the presidency last year, according to the analysis of individual donations totaling more […]
D. Bruce Johnsen of George Mason has written A Closer Look at Payment Cards. Here is the abstract: This essay takes a closer look at the U.S. payment card system, primarily debit cards. I examine the bundle of transactional services this and other types of payment cards provide. My goal, in large part, is to […]
Frank A. Pasquale III of Maryland has written Democratizing Higher Education: Defending and Extending Income-Based Repayment Programs, Loyola Consumer Law Review (Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: This article addresses many critiques of income-based repayment programs for student loan debt. These programs are not helping many of the students they were designed to aid. Their terms […]
by Jeff Sovern Gregory Gauthier has pointed out that Starbucks has changed its arbitration clause and wonders why. The old version is described here. The new version is somewhat less onerous. For example, it permits the arbitration to be "held in a reasonably convenient location in the state in which you reside or at another mutually agreed […]
David Adam Friedman of Willamette has written Refining Advertising Regulation. Here's the abstract: Why did the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) aggressively pursue Volkswagen’s claims about “clean-diesel” technology, while ignoring widespread practices like deceptive discount pricing? Why did the FTC offer formal guidance to industry about “native advertising,” but only casual guidance to consumers about widely-used, […]
Brigitta Lurger of Graz and four co-authors have written Consumer Decisions Under High Information Load: How Can Legal Rules Improve Search Behavior and Decision Quality?. Here's the abstract: EU consumer protection legislation is designed to enable consumers to make "good" contract decisions in the market place. This legislation heavily relies on the model of rational […]