The Federal Trade Commission has had a busy week. Yesterday, the FTC announced that it had stopped a "massive payday loan fraud scheme." The operators of a payday lending scheme that allegedly bilked millions of dollars from consumers by trapping them into loans they never authorized will be banned from the consumer lending business under […]
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The Federal Trade Commission has announced: The marketers of a dietary supplement called Procera AVH will relinquish $1.4 million under settlements resolving Federal Trade Commission charges that they deceived consumers with claims that the supplement was clinically proven to significantly improve memory, mood, and other cognitive functions. Under the terms of the settlements, the defendants […]
The Washington Examiner reports: Voters overwhelmingly say they want stronger regulations for banks and less Wall Street influence in Washington even as the financial crisis recedes into the past, according to a new poll released Tuesday by advocates of tougher rules on the financial industry. Seventy-three percent of likely 2016 voters favor the provisions of […]
From the CFPB press release: Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Attorneys General in 47 states and the District of Columbia took action against JPMorgan Chase for selling bad credit card debt and illegally robo-signing court documents. The CFPB and states found that Chase sold “zombie debts” to third-party debt buyers, which include accounts […]
by Paul Alan Levy Not much, it appears. Following up on the recent spate of stories about a grand jury subpoena that the United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York had issued to Reason Magazine, demanding the identities of the authors over several commenters who called for the execution of […]
By Stephen Gardner According to a story in Food Navigator, Whole Foods filed a motion to dismiss (Download Motion to Dismiss) a lawsuit over the chicanery of its using the FDA-Disapproved term "Evaporated Cane Juice" instead of calling it what it is, "Sugar," because consumers intuitively understand that evaporated cane juice is sugar. I assume Whole Foods will […]
The USA Today reports, "The operators of a payday lending scheme that allegedly bilked millions of dollars from consumers nationwide have agreed to more than $54 million in tentative settlements with the Federal Trade Commission." The scheme, which affected approximately 400,000 consumers, involved a variety of misrepresentations and unauthorized deposits and withdrawals. Read more here.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today put out a report about problems with student loan servicing in the military. Among the problems identified: • Military deferments are denied without adequate explanation, applied in a haphazard way, and, in some cases, are approved verbally but never applied to military borrowers’ accounts, resulting in late fees, defaults […]
Read about a University of Buffalo study that found that vehicle type, curb weight and price are all significant predictors of personal injury cost. For every additional $10,000 you spend, injuries go down by almost 12 percent. We also found that for every 1,000-pound increase in weight, vehicles were 19 percent safer. … [S]ome of […]