The article, Companies use this sneaky pricing trick to overcharge you. One lawmaker wants it banned, is by K.R. Callaway. Excerpt: Last year, the FTC launched an investigation into surveillance pricing, hoping to learn more about how companies were using personal data to change prices. The initial results, released in January, found that retailers were using everything from demographic […]
Category Archives: Unfair & Deceptive Acts & Practices (UDAP), including Discrimination
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday nullified the Federal Trade Commission’s Click-to-Cancel rule. The rule addressed unfair and deceptive practices in subscriptions (or negative options marketing). The FTC aimed to remove misrepresentations in subscription practices and to generally make canceling subscriptions as easy as it is to sign up for them. In reversing the […]
Seth Frotman & Tara Mikkilineni have written The Trump Administration Wants to Reboot Redlining at the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology’s Jolt Digest. Here’s an excerpt: [T] he Vought CFPB[] . . . . has quietly made a series of moves that would enable an unholy alliance of Big Tech and financial institutions to digitally […]
Here in the American Banker (behind a paywall but should be available on Lexis). The article includes some troubling observations, including that despite a Paoletta memo claiming that the Bureau under Trump will focus on consumer fraud, the dismissed cases include at least one case involving deceptive marketing. The article does mention some cases that […]
Consumer Bankers Association so reports here. The dismissal is with prejudice. For a critique of the district court opinion holding that discrimination is not unfair, go here.
The stipulation of dismissal is here. Here’s some of what the Bureau had said earlier about the case: The Bureau alleges that SoLo’s advertisements and loan disclosures tout no-interest loans when, in fact, virtually all loans on the SoLo Platform include a lender “tip” that goes to the lender, a SoLo “donation” that goes to […]
As the federal government as we know it is eliminated, it is good to see a positive pro-consumer opinion out of the Eleventh Circuit today. In Booze v. Ocwen Loan Servicing, the Court of Appeals considered a question that had divided district courts–whether the FDCPA prohibits loan servicers from collecting “pay-to-pay” or “convenience” fees for the […]
The notice arrived Saturday morning. Rohit Chopra’s tenure as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had ended — by the new administration — well short of the completion of his five-year term. The past week was filled with grumbling from various industry corners and inquiring journalists wondering why Chopra had not already been forced […]
The US airline industry challenged DOT rules issued by the last administration that required airlines to disclose certain fees upfront when potential customers search for itineraries, The petitions for review included both constitutional and statutory challenges, as well as procedural challenges. A motions panel of the Fifth Circuit had stayed the Rule, and today, the […]
Yesterday, over a dissent, the Fifth Circuit vacated the FTC’s CARS rule, which protected consumers from unfair and deceptive practices by car dealers. While the challengers lobbed many wide-ranging arguments that called into question the FTC’s authority broadly, the Fifth Circuit based its ruling solely on the agency’s failure to issue an Advanced Notice of […]