After Katrina, Norm Silber wrote an article, Debts, Disasters, and Delinquencies: The Case for a Mandatory Force Majeure Provision in Consumer Credit Agreements, and for a Consumer Credit Insurance Fund, 34 New York University Review of Law and Social Change 1 (2010), which has lessons for consumer protection as we grapple with the coronavirus. Here […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern Yesterday, as part of his response to the coronavirus, President Trump announced that he was temporarily waiving "interest on all student loans held by federal government agencies." According to the NY Times, monthly payments won't change. Instead, the monthly payments will go to reducing the principal, which will ultimately reduce the amount […]
by Jeff Sovern The coronavirus is already having an impact on consumers and consumer protection. Some initial observations: The FTC and FDA have sent warning letters to companies reportedly making deceptive or unsupported claims about their products' ability to treat the coronanvirus. It's good that they're on the job. There have been reports of discrimination against Asians […]
by Jeff Sovern The CFPB recently proposed various disclosures to include on validation notices pertaining to time-barred debt. Before doing so, the Bureau retained ICF International to test the notices empirically; this testing found that the notices enabled many respondents to better understand certain rights as to time-barred debt. So far, so good. But the […]
Yonathan A. Arbel of Alabama has written Payday, forthcoming in 98 Washington University Law Review. Here is the abstract: Legislation lags behind technology all too often. While trillions of dollars are exchanged in online transactions—safely, cheaply, and instantaneously—workers still must wait two weeks to a month to receive payments from their employers. In the modern […]
The American Banker has the answer (free content).
Daniel J. Solove of George Washington has written The Myth of the Privacy Paradox. Here is the abstract: In this article, Professor Daniel Solove deconstructs and critiques the privacy paradox and the arguments made about it. The “privacy paradox” is the phenomenon where people say that they value privacy highly, yet in their behavior relinquish […]
Jim Hawkins of Houston has written Earned Wage Access and the End of Payday Lending. Here is the abstract: Fintech companies have developed a financial product that allows employees to gain access to wages that they have already earned before their scheduled payday. The fee for getting an earned wage advance is usually small, making this […]
by Jeff Sovern Twice a year, CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger testifies before the House Financial Services Committee about the Bureau's Semi-Annual Report. A committee member I always look forward to hearing from is Katie Porter, a former law professor at UC-Irvine, among other schools, with an impressive record of consumer law scholarship and accomplishment. Representative […]
by Jeff Sovern A recent NY Times article, Chaos at Chain Pharmacies Is Putting Patients at Risk, reminded me of how the Wells Fargo quotas drove Wells employees to open unauthorized accounts. There's a lot in the article, but here are two excerpts: [CVS] Staff members were supposed to persuade 65 percent of patients picking […]