by Jeff Sovern Earlier this year, the CFPB created a Taskforce to make "recommendations for ways to improve and strengthen consumer financial laws and regulations." The Taskforce is chaired by George Mason professor Todd Zwyicki and its other members are J. Howard Beales III, Thomas A. Durkin, William C. MacLeod, and Jean Noonan. As far […]
The National Consumer Law Center has posted a compilation of "major consumer protections announced in response to COVID-19," including suspensions on foreclosures, evictions, terminations on telecommunications and utility service, elimination of interest, and forbearance on student loan payments. The webpage is here.
A bipartisan group of state attorneys general on Wednesday sent letters to major online retailers urging them crack down on price gouging on their online platforms amid the spread of coronavirus. The 34 attorneys general asked Amazon, Craigslist, eBay, Facebook and Walmart build tools to detect price spikes and create landing pages for people to […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has posted Protecting your finances during the Coronavirus Pandemic.
One of the hard lessons that I have learned over my years of practice is that, although some lawyers believe that they can increase the in terrorem effect of a complaint or a demand letter by piling on claims, the net effect of adding silly assertions can be to make things worse for your own […]
by Jeff Sovern Evan Weinberger reports here. The bill's text is not yet available at Govtrack. I wonder if the bill would also apply to consumers who have not lost their jobs or had hours cut back because of the pandemic, and if so, what incentives it would create for them.
The Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are co-hosting a webinar focusing on student loan repayment during the coronavirus pandemic. More information and registration here.
Hofstra's Norm Silber, who studied gift cards and other merchant cash substitutes for his article, Merchant Authorized Consumer Cash Substitutes, 14 University of Virginia Law & Business Review (2019), urges consumers to spend their gift cards online. He points out that [A] gift card always involves insolvency risks, but the problem has never been as […]
Jacqueline Howard of CNN explains here that "the US Food and Drug Administration issued a final rule Tuesday that requires tobacco companies to place new graphic health warnings on cigarette packages and in advertisements. Beginning on June 18, 2021, the new cigarette health warnings will be required on cigarette packages and in advertisements, occupying the […]
After Katrina, Norm Silber wrote an article, Debts, Disasters, and Delinquencies: The Case for a Mandatory Force Majeure Provision in Consumer Credit Agreements, and for a Consumer Credit Insurance Fund, 34 New York University Review of Law and Social Change 1 (2010), which has lessons for consumer protection as we grapple with the coronavirus. Here […]