by Deepak Gupta In today's Los Angeles Times, consumer columnist David Lazarus takes a look at the practice of for-profit debt collectors renting out the seal and letterhead of local California prosecutors — the target of a new class-action lawsuit that our firm filed yesterday in federal court in San Francisco. The practice was condemned in […]
Category Archives: Unfair & Deceptive Acts & Practices (UDAP), including Discrimination
by Deepak Gupta Since its inception, this blog has covered the pernicious practice of prosecutors who rent out their name and authority to private for-profit debt collectors. As readers may recall, these debt collectors use official-looking letterhead to threaten consumers who have accidentally bounced checks for household purchases — consumers are told they'll face criminal […]
. . . and finds Pennsylvania's law wanting in his column, N.J. wrong to consider weakening consumer protection. An interesting natural experiment.
The main story is here, and sidebars on efforts to silence internet critics can be found here (quoting fellow blogger Scott Michelman) and here. An excerpt: [The consumers] agreed to pay $16,600 in principal and interest, with seven years of monthly $195 installments. In return, Sundance promised 30 weeks of "resort area condominium accommodations" in […]
by Jeff Sovern Back in April, the American Tort Reform Association had a roundtable discussion about UDAP statutes with FTC Commissioner (and former George Mason professor) Joshua Wright, Joanna Shepherd-Bailey of Emory, Peter Holland of Maryland Law School, and Cary Silverman of Shook Hardy & Bacon. You can watch it here. Given the host, you […]
by Stephen Gardner The Board of Directors of the National Association of Consumer Advocates adopted the Third Edition of its Standards and Guidelines for Litigating and Settling Class Actions on May 13 (Download here), continuing a tradition of setting high standards for the ways consumer class actions are handled that began with the first Guidelines adopted in […]
Here. And here is a video of the event described in the article.
by Jeff Sovern The Dodd-Frank Act, in section 1031, authorizes the CFPB to bring actions to prevent abusive, deceptive, and unfair practices. Section 1042 gives states the power to enforce Dodd-Frank provisions as well. Accordingly, as reported here, here, and here, on Wednesday New York’s Department of Financial Services, led by Ben Lawsky, brought what has been […]
by Jeff Sovern My co-author, Dee Pridgen of Wyoming, has written an important and disturbing account of attempts by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to dismantle a fundamental device to protect consumers: the private UDAP claim. Readers of this blog will find her article, Wrecking Ball Disguised as Law Reform: ALEC's Model Act on […]
Here. The top 10 complaint categories include: Category Number of Complaints Percentages Identity Theft 290,056 14% Debt Collection 204,644 10% Banks and Lenders 152,707 7% Imposter Scams 121,720 6% Telephone and Mobile Services 116,261 6% Prizes, Sweepstakes, and Lotteries 89,944 4% Auto Related Complaints 82,701 4% Shop-at-Home and Catalog Sales 66,024 3% Television and Electronic […]