by Jeff Sovern This isn't consumer law, strictly speaking, but I thought readers of the blog might be interested to know that the Trump administration's Treasury Department thinks banking is not a financial service. That interpretation has the effect of cutting taxes paid by banks. David Sirota has the story, The Trump Administration Just Found a […]
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Pew Charitable Trusts reports that consumers are exposed to potentially harmful financial products from the nation’s fragmented regulatory system. "Innovation can spur growth and competition in financial markets and provide new and better options for customers. But without careful, balanced regulation, it can also present serious risks to consumers,” the report contends. The report also […]
The Los Angeles Sentinel reports on a new poll that finds consumers still support financial regulation and related enforcement. Moreover, consumer concern about payday and car-title lending has increased over the past year. Roughly three-fourths of likely 2018 voters support the existence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and more than half are concerned about Republican efforts […]
The bottom line: "Presidents deserve wide latitude in choosing agency heads to carry out their mission in line with the administration's priorities. And USA TODAY has a long history of supporting those choices even when we disagree with the views of particular nominees. But the public should be able to demand, at a minimum, that […]
Politico reports on continuing debate over rules to protect people from financial advisors' who put their own interests above those of the clients that they are advising. Older savers are often the targets of brokers’ self-enriching sales that saddle them with expensive products or investments they can’t easily exchange for cash, interviews with financial advisers […]
The Washington Post reports that "Facebook’s push to gain access to users' banking data and other sensitive financial information could help make online banking more efficient — or it could backfire among those skeptical that the world’s biggest social network can reliably safeguard personal data. The site has joined a growing race among big technology […]
by Paul Alan Levy An article in the Washington City Paper discusses a new feature on Yelp’s web site, which captures health department inspection records and boils them down to a score (in most jurisdictions, the scale runs from zero and 100). Some restaurateurs who are unhappy about having received low health scores sounded off […]
Law prof Eric Goldman has written An Introduction to the California Consumer Privacy Act. Here's the abstract: After a mere week of deliberations, the California legislature passed the Consumer Privacy Act (CPA), a sweeping, lengthy (10,000 words!), insanely complicated, and poorly drafted privacy regulation that will govern the world’s fifth largest economy. This short primer, excerpted […]
Jon Sheldon at the National Consumer Law Center discusses "Shortening the Limitations Period on Credit Card Collection Lawsuits": With the growth of the debt buying industry, the statute of limitations has become a particularly important defense in credit card collection lawsuits. Not only do debt buyers purchase credit card debt six months or more after […]
The Regulatory Review has a short piece on Betsy Devos's effort to roll back protections for student loan borrowers put in place under the Obama Administration, focusing on the borrower-defense rule. The post is here.