Kate Elengold of UNC and Sophie Laing Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc. have written Offsetting Justice: Using Government Power To Collect Private Debts, 175 Penn. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2027). Here’s the abstract: Private creditors regularly hire third-party debt collectors to recoup debt on their behalf by contacting, coercing, and suing consumer debtors. Scholars, advocates, and policymakers […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Here. Remember how the Trump CFPB rescinded numerous Biden CFPB initiatives? Democrats plan to seek a vote under the Congressional Review Act on the withdrawal of many of the initiatives. The CRA resolutions are not expected to pass.
Congratulations to California consumers! Politico has the story here.
Back in 2022, the FTC accused Kochava of engaging in unfair practices because it sold vast amounts of data obtained from smart phones, including geolocation data (where the phones were); profiles of consumers, including their marital status, ethnicity, gender identity, political association, employment; what phone apps they had and how much time they spent on […]
Michael Blasie of Seattle has written Information Poverty and the Right to Understand. Here is the abstract: Legal systems around the world, and particularly in the United States, rest on a foundational delusion: that ordinary people can understand the laws and legal documents that govern them. Despite the growing focus on “access to justice,” most […]
Then listen to this episode of Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor podcast.
Here or go to Pete Barry featured on ABC’s 20/20 & Nightline – YouTube. Painful listening. Another reason we need an actual CFPB.
The survey was conducted by the Goldberg Law Group. Only 16% of Americans say they read every word of a contract. I very much doubt it’s even that high. Almost certainly some of the people who said they read every word were too embarrassed to say they didn’t. For example, when I polled consumer financial […]
Here’s the latest announcement: The UC Berkeley Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice and the Alexander Blewett III School of Law at the University of Montana are proud to present the fourteenth biennial international Teaching Consumer Law Conference. We are also excited to announce that this conference will constitute the first-ever North American (and Caribbean/Central American) […]
by Brandon Ballou. It’s available here. Ballou also has a guest essay in the Times, He Signed Away His Right to Sue by Subscribing to Disney+. Excerpt from the essay: * * * In small claims courts, consumers win as often as 89 percent of the time. Before the two leading U.S. arbitration providers, consumers […]