Frank Pasquale of Maryland has a terrific op-ed in today's Times, The Dark Market for Personal Data, about lists of consumers with various characteristics. An excerpt: There are three problems with these lists. First, they are often inaccurate. For example, as The Washington Post reported, an Arkansas woman found her credit history and job prospects wrecked […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern The op-ed is here, at Forbes.com. Except that if you want to find out why everything Warren said is wrong, maybe the op-ed wouldn't be the place to look. Here's the lead: Why do people borrow? To hear law professor turned Senator Elizabeth Warren, it is because they are seduced by rapacious […]
Thomas A. Durkin and Gregory Elliehausen, both of the Fed, and Todd J. Zywicki of George Mason have written An Assessment of Behavioral Law and Economics Contentions and What We Know Empirically About Credit Card Use by Consumers. Here is an abstract: “Behavioral Law and Economics” (BLE) is a specialized component of the legal literature […]
Julia S. Cheney, Robert M. Hunt, Vyacheslav Mikhed, and Dubravka Ritter all of the Philadelphia Fed, have written Identity Theft as a Teachable Moment. Here is the abstract: This paper examines how instances of identity theft that are sufficiently severe to induce consumers to place an extended fraud alert in their credit reports affect their […]
The main story is here, and sidebars on efforts to silence internet critics can be found here (quoting fellow blogger Scott Michelman) and here. An excerpt: [The consumers] agreed to pay $16,600 in principal and interest, with seven years of monthly $195 installments. In return, Sundance promised 30 weeks of "resort area condominium accommodations" in […]
Quoting from the CFP: The 15th conference of the International Association of Consumer law is organized on the theme of “Virtues and Consumer Law”. We kindly invite participants from all around the world to submit an abstract of a paper they would like to present during the conference addressing one of the virtues and consumer […]
Debra Pogrund Stark of John Marshall,Jessica M. Choplin of DePaul University, Mark A. LeBoeuf of DePaul and Andrew G. Pizor of the National Consumer Law Center have written Dodd-Frank 2.0: Creating Interactive Home-Loan Disclosures to Enable Shrewd Consumer Decision-Making, forthcoming in the Loyola Consumer Law Review. Here's the abstract: Congress and the Consumer Financial Protection […]
Danielle Kie Hart of Southwestern has written Form & Substance in Nancy Kim's Wrap Contracts, 44 Southwestern University Law Review (2014 Forthcoming). Here's the abstract: Nancy Kim’s book, Wrap Contracts, is ambitious and well worth reading. Kim coins the term “wrap contracts” to expose, explain and demystify the world of mostly online contracting. By revealing […]
by Jeff Sovern Last week, Brian posted a link to a NY Times story about the use of devices that auto lenders can activate to prevent a car from starting when a consumer has defaulted on a payment. In response, BHPH Report (BHPH evidently stands for "Buy Here, Pay Here") ran a piece titled PassTime Refutes […]
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