by Brian Wolfman Typically, consumers buy or lease new (and used) cars from car dealers, not car makers. When Toyota owners sued Toyota over faulty anti-lock brakes recently, Toyota sought to compel arbitration, invoking the arbitration clauses in purchase contracts that the individuals plaintiffs had with various Toyota dealers. Believe it or not, that gambit […]
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That's what the Federal Communications Commission would like to see, as explained in this front-page Washington Post article by Cecilia Kang. As you might imagine, some industries like this idea a tad better than others. Here's a short excerpt: The federal government wants to create super WiFi networks across the nation, so powerful and broad […]
by Brian Wolfman The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued this final rule that will require manufacturers of drugs, biologics, medical devices, and certain other medical products to report annually to the Secretary of HHS about the payments the manufacturers make to doctors and hospitals. The Secretary is then required to […]
Journalist and consumer advocate Christopher Elliott has this article in Sunday's Washington Post about the high cost of using a credit card to charge a call on a public pay phone. According to the article, the posted rate applies only to coin payment, and the rate for credit card calls is typically not posted at […]
by Brian Wolfman Back in October, the Federal Trade Commission challenged the public to create an innovative solution that will block illegal commercial robocalls on landlines and mobile phones. As part of its ongoing campaign against these illegal, prerecorded telemarketing calls, the agency … launch[ed] the FTC Robocall Challenge, and offer[ed] a $50,000 cash prize […]
We've already blogged twice on this subject today (here and here). But there's something else you may want to check out. Jen Lavellee, a senior lawyer at the D.C. Legal Aid Society, posted this piece on a client who experienced some of the serious problems discussed in the FTC Report on the debt buying industry […]
This morning, Allison posted this informative piece on the FTC's new report on the debt buying industry. The Consumerist has done a nice overview of the report, explaining in some detail what it sees as the report's eight key takeaways: (1) Debt-Buyers Only Pay About $.04 Per Dollar On The Accounts They Buy; (2) Debt-Buyers […]
Here. The lead: "Many of the nation's largest financial institutions lowered their spending on lobbying the federal government in 2012, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics." Still, as the slideshow makes clears, many of the largest financial institutions individually spent millions on lobbying last year. I wonder if all the consumer […]
If you have health insurance, you probably know that the charges for "out of network" services are more than services provided by doctors and hospitals that are "in network." This article by Chad Terhune explains just how much the differential can be and whether the system is in need of reform. Here's an excerpt: A […]
The Federal Trade Commission yesterday announced the results of an empirical study of companies that are in the business of buying consumer debts and trying to collect on them. The study looked at more than 5,000 portfolios containing nearly 90 million consumer accounts with a face value of $143 billion. In its report, The Structure […]