by Jeff Sovern I've spent the last few days at a terrific International Association of Consumer Law conference at the of Indiana University's Robert H. McKinney Law School (my second great conference in five months, the other being Ted Mermin's Berkeley Consumer Law Scholars Conference). Indiana's James Nehf clearly had worked very hard to put […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern Link here Excerpt: [T]the bureau proposal would invade consumer privacy by allowing collectors to bombard consumers with demands for payment. Under the proposal, debt collectors could try the consumer’s phone number seven times a week and leave voicemails each time. That may not sound too bad, but the CFPB reports that nearly […]
Meirav Furth-Matzkin and Roseanna Sommers, both of Chicago, have written Consumer Psychology and the Problem of Fine Print Fraud, 72 STANFORD LAW REVIEW___ (Forthcoming). Here's the abstract: This Article investigates how laypeople respond to consumer contracts that are formed as a result of fraud. Across four studies, we show that contrary to the prevailing wisdom in […]
by Jeff Sovern The more I think about the CFPB's recent proposal to allow debt collectors to leave limited-content messages over the phone, the more I think the proposal has real problems. The proposal would allow debt collectors to leave voicemails or oral messages with whomever answered the phone. To qualify as a limited-content message, […]
by Jeff Sovern Many states allow their consumers to sue misbehaving companies for unfair practices, including red and purple states like Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, states that we normally don't think of as being in the vanguard of consumer protection. This power can be important in protecting consumers. For example, the […]
It's to be published next month by Cambridge and sounds like an important contribution. Here's a description: The Foreclosure Echo tells the story of the ordinary people whose quest for the American dream was crushed in the foreclosure crisis when they were threatened with losing their homes. The authors, Linda E. Fisher and Judith Fox […]
by Jeff Sovern It may seem bizarre, but it appears that recommendations that contain information that goes beyond the transactions or experiences of the person writing the letter are subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. For example, if a law professor writes a letter that points out that a student has job experience in […]
by Jeff Sovern On Saturday, I blogged about the College Board's adversity score. Today, in response to my inquiry, I received an email from the College Board which contained the following: We have received questions about whether students and schools can see the content of the Dashboard, and we’re looking into how we might make […]
by Jeff Sovern The Wall Street Journal has reported that the College Board, providers of the SAT tests, will give colleges an adversity score for each applicant who takes the SAT to aid college in admissions decisions. As the Journal explains: This new number, called an adversity score by college admissions officers, is calculated using […]
by Jeff Sovern That's the title of my latest essay for The Conversation, about how preemption of state privacy laws could harm consumers. Here's an excerpt: [R]ather than circumventing state laws, a federal privacy law should work in partnership with them – just as federal laws regulating auto safety such as airbag requirements operate in […]