Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

It Wasn’t Just Wells Fargo, Says OCC

by Jeff Sovern I have long wondered whether Wells Fargo was alone in opening unauthorized accounts or if it other banks did the same.  A student reported to me that his bank–not Wells–opened an unauthorized account in his name, and I have heard isolated reports of similar behavior elsewhere.  Now Kevin Wack reports in the […]

Does Mulvaney Want to Protect the CFPB from Consumers?

by Jeff Sovern More and more, the CFPB's acting director, Mick Mulvaney, has made clear that he is not interested in hearing from consumers or their advocates. As Allison reported earlier today, the CFPB has kicked off all the members of its advisory committees, which included industry folks as well as consumer advocates and professors. […]

Fitbit Lawyer Admits Admits No Rational Consumer Would Arbitrate $162 Claim

by Jeff Sovern So Allison Frankel reports for Reuters in a story headlined Fitbit lawyers reveal ‘ugly truth’ about arbitration, judge threatens contempt. Here are the first three paragraphs: At a hearing Thursday in San Francisco federal court, a lawyer for the fitness tracking company Fitbit told U.S. District Judge James Donato that no rational customer would arbitrate a $162 […]

Paper on Advertising’s Short-Term Effects

Chen He of the Tilburg Law and Economics Center and Tobias J. Klein of the Tilburg University Department of Econometrics & Operations Research, Center for Economic Research, Law and Economics Center; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; and Netspar, have written Advertising as a Reminder: Evidence from the Dutch State Lottery. Here is the abstract: We use […]

2019 International Association of Consumer Law (IACL) Conference to be in Indiana next June

We received the following announcement: The next conference of the International Association of Consumer Law (IACL) will be held at the Indiana University McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis on June 13-15, 2019. This is the first time that the conference will be held in the United States, and we are hoping to get a good turnout from consumer law […]

Is the CFPB Making it Easier for Financial Institutions to Discriminate in Lending?

by Jeff Sovern Allison blogged earlier about Kate Berry's American Banker article, CFPB signals pullback on discrimination cases. I wanted to say a bit more about this area. Depending on how you count, there are basically three ways to prove credit discrimination cases. One, that is theoretically possible, but that you virtually never see in practice, […]

My Latest Op-ed: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, leaving the public high and dry

Here, in the Daily News. Excerpt:  Mulvaney once called the bureau a "sad, sick joke" and co-sponsored a bill to eliminate it. The solution he has adopted to run an agency he thinks should not exist is to "be a good bureaucrat," and do what the law requires — but no more. Mulvaney even extends […]