As we noted in a previous post, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently announced new rules, effective October 1, 2017, governing the prepaid debit card industry. As the Washington Post explains, "It’s a big change more than two years in the making that’s expected to bring some basic account protections to its customers, who are […]
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by Jeff Sovern I find Twitter a useful source of information on a wide variety of topics. I'm curious to know whom people follow in the area of consumer law. Sources I find helpful (in no particular order): David Dayen, Mathew Bruckner, Financial Services (Dems on the House Financial Services Committee), Consumer Reports, Ted Frank, […]
I've written a short opinion piece for The Hill called "The D.C. Circuit demotes Richard Cordray." It's available here.
by Paul Alan Levy Over the past decade, I have had occasion in several separate cases to help consumers in opposing creative ways in which dentists (Stacy Makhnevich, Mitul Patel, Gordon Austin, and others) have tried to insulate themselves from criticism by their customers. So it's about time I had a chance to help a […]
The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it obtained court orders permanently barring a group of California-based marketers from the deceptive marketing and billing tactics allegedly used to promote their skincare products. Twenty-nine defendants who sold Auravie, Dellure, LéOR Skincare, and Miracle Face Kit branded skincare products have agreed to court orders with the FTC […]
The Federal Trade Commission announced that is charged the operators of a multi-national tech support company with using deceptive pop-up internet ads to scare thousands of consumers into paying hundreds of dollars each for unnecessary technical support services. It obtained a court order temporarily stopping the defendants’ practices and freezing their assets. The defendants commonly […]
NPR's Marketplace reported this morning: In the last few years, there's been such a spike in drug coupons, pharmaceutical companies have barely been able to print them fast enough. Coupons help patients shoulder the cost of expensive prescriptions, but a new paper out in the New England Journal of Medicine finds certain coupons are also […]
On Tuesday, we posted here and here about the D.C. Circuit's decision in PHH Corporation v. CFPB, which held that the CFPB's governing structure is unconstitutional because its director is too independent of the President — the CFPB is an independent agency run not by a multi-member commission (the members of which serve as checks on one another), but by one […]
by Paul Alan Levy Profile Defenders, which has been linked to a pattern of defrauding courts to get material removed from the Internet altogether or, at least, suppressed in search engine results, has refused to comment directly on the spate of articles describing its modus operandi. However, a press release issued yesterday suggests the direction […]
The case the Supreme Court agreed to hear today, Midland Funding v. Johnson, involves both whether filing a proof of claim for a time-barred debt in a bankruptcy proceeding is debt collection activity that violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and whether, if so, the Bankruptcy Code effectively preempts the FDCPA's application to bankruptcy […]