by Jeff Sovern Here. An excerpt: A group of Republican state attorneys general has declined to sign cooperation agreements with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, part of an escalating Republican revolt against the agency that began in the U.S. Congress. Richard Cordray, the agency’s director, asked all 50 states in March to sign a memorandum of […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Sunday's Times reported that the next version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer will include a "Do Not Track" privacy setting as a default. Consumers installing the browser will be presented with the option of switching from the default to permit tracking. Excerpts: But the specter of people opting out of tracking en masse presents a serious […]
Nathalie Martin and Ernesto A. Longa, both of New Mexico have written High-Interest Loans and Class: Do Payday and Title Loans Really Serve the Middle Class?, 24 Loyola Consumer Law Reporter 524 (2012). Here's the abstract: This symposium article addresses the question of whether payday and title lenders serve primarily the working poor, as some critics […]
by Jeff Sovern Today's Times has a story headlined "In Prosecutors, Debt Collectors Find a Partner." An excerpt: The letters are sent by the thousands to people across the country who have written bad checks, threatening them with jail if they do not pay. They bear the seal and signature of the local district attorney’s […]
Here. An excerpt: For some banks and industrial lenders, the new oversight may be so costly that they stop offering some products, says Bill Himpler, vice president of the American Financial Services Association, a trade group for card companies, mortgage lenders and finance companies. He says the bureau's tactics put companies on the defensive. "It […]
Chris Jay Hoofnagle of Berkeley, Ashkan Soltani of Berkeley's School of Information, Nathan Good of Good Research, Dietrich James Wambach, a student at Wyoming, and Mika Ayenson of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute have written Behavioral Advertising: The Offer You Cannot Refuse, 6 Harvard Law & Policy Review 273 (2012). Here's the abstract: At UC Berkeley, […]
Lauren E. Willis of Loyola Los Angeles, always a thoughtful writer, has authored When Nudges Fail: Slippery Defaults. Here's the abstract: Inspired by the success of “automatic enrollment” in increasing participation in defined contribution retirement savings plans, policymakers have put similar policy defaults in place in a variety of other contexts, from checking account overdraft […]
Vicki Been of NYU, Howell E. Jackson of Harvard, and Mark A. Willis of NYU have written Essay: Sticky Seconds – The Problems Second Liens Pose to the Resolution of Distressed Mortgages. Here's the abstract: Almost five years into the foreclosure crisis, policymakers, the mortgage industry, consumers and taxpayers all express disappointment over the slow […]
by Jeff Sovern I have been listening to the audio version of Dan Areily's book, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, and it may shed some light on consumer protection. Ariely explores the causes and limits of dishonesty. He reports on a series of experiments that suggest that many people cheat a little, but not so […]
by Jeff Sovern A fellow named Eric Grover had a piece atacking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Washington Times this week titled "CFPB’s unchecked power." A line at the end of the essay explains "Eric Grover is a principal at Intrepid Ventures." I had never heard of Intrepid Ventures, but their web site […]