Dennis D. Hirsch of Capital has written In Search of the Holy Grail: Achieving Global Privacy Rules Through Sector-Based Codes of Conduct, 74 Ohio St. L.J. (2013). Here is the abstract: The movement of personal data across national borders is fundamental to the Internet economy. Yet the laws that govern such data flows remain national […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Adam J. Levitin of Georgetown and Janneke Ratcliffe the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for Community Capital have written Rethinking Duties to Serve in Housing Finance, in Homeownership Built to Last: Lessons from the Housing Crisis on Sustaining Homeownership for Low-Income and Minority Families (Brookings 2014). Here is the abstract: In this […]
Susanna Montezemolo of the Center for Responsible Lending haas written Car-Title Lending. Here is the abstract: Provides an overview of car-title lending and its impact on U.S. households. Car-title lending — making expensive loans secured by the title of a vehicle a borrower owns outright — has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. […]
Here, in the Boston Fed's quarterly newsletter. Excerpt: The problems inherent to the business model are most starkly exposed in the context of lawsuits filed by debt buyers. On the one hand, the debt buyer acknowledges in the forward-flow agreement that the data it received from the bank is limited and potentially inaccurate, with frequent […]
by Jeff Sovern The CFPB announced yesterday that the big three credit bureaus have added a function to their web sites to enable consumers to upload documents supporting claims of errors–police reports, copies of correspondence, etc–in credit reports. That shouldn't be a big deal in 2014, but in the world of credit bureaus, where the […]
Here. Excerpts from PIRG's news release: Debt collectors trying to collect debt from the wrong person were the top source of complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), according to a report released today by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund. The report also found that debt collection, the newest category in the database, is […]
Here. The top 10 complaint categories include: Category Number of Complaints Percentages Identity Theft 290,056 14% Debt Collection 204,644 10% Banks and Lenders 152,707 7% Imposter Scams 121,720 6% Telephone and Mobile Services 116,261 6% Prizes, Sweepstakes, and Lotteries 89,944 4% Auto Related Complaints 82,701 4% Shop-at-Home and Catalog Sales 66,024 3% Television and Electronic […]
by Jeff Sovern Housing Wire reports in Congressional Republicans mull bill to add CFPB oversight, that the House will vote this week on a bill to replace the CFPB's director with a commission and subject it to the congressional appropriation process. The bill is not expected to receive a warm welcome in the Senate or at […]
In August we posted a link to a paper Albany's Elizabeth Renuart had written, Uneasy Intersections: The Right to Foreclose and the U.C.C., 48 Wake Forest L. Rev. 1205 (2013), The paper has already drawn more than 500 downloads. An updated version is now available. Here is the revised abstract: Historically, the practice of […]
Here. Tim Danahey interviews Theresa Amato of Fair Contracts.org and Citizen Works. Theresa discusses how consumer contracts reduce consumers to "contract serfdom" and also explores issues governing arbitration clauses. Worth a listen, and if you are teaching consumer law this semester, this merits passing on to students as a painless way to learn about consumer protection […]