by Jeff Sovern Barney Frank is speaking today at the Berkeley Consumer Law Scholars Conference. Here's something I posted in 2015 on his autobiography: I just finished listening to the audio version of Barney Frank's autobiography, Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage, which Frank reads himself. I listened to it […]
by Jeff Sovern You should be able to listen here. The American Banker's Kate Berry has a story here, behind a paywall, unfortunately, but if you have Lexis, you can read it there. Excerpt: [Chopra's] aggressive past statements coupled with the power and high profile that comes with the CFPB job could lead to some […]
Panel I – Antiracist Policy in Consumer Law – March 4, 4:00 PM (All times are CST.) The symposium's first panel will highlight antiracist policy arising in the various areas of consumer law. The panelists' expertise and discussion topics range from historical analysis of racist consumer facing practices to modern analyses of consumer protection most […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York today sued a company called Libre by Nexus, Inc. and its owners for a predatory immigrant-services scam that traps victims into paying expensive, long-term fees. The complaint alleges that Libre preys on immigrants, primarily Hispanics, who speak little or no English and are being held […]
Consumer journalist David Lazarus of the LA Times has written We’re living in a golden age of scams as fraud reports surge amid pandemic. He notes that "[i]t’s been clear for months that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for scammers, con artists and assorted slimeballs looking to cash in on this most […]
Here. Excerpt (footnotes omitted): As then-Professor Elena Kagan explained in her famous article, “Presidential Administration,” it is the overriding tendency of recent presidents to harness executive agencies’ rulemaking and other authorities and use them as extensions of their own policy and political agendas. Given the CFPB’s broad authorities, its ample funding through the Federal Reserve, […]
Minnesota's Prentiss Cox and Suffolk's Kathleen C. Engel have written Student Loan Reform: Rights Under the Law, Incentives Under Contract, and Mission Failure Under ED, Harvard Journal on Legislation, Forthcoming. Here's the abstract: The federal student loan program is a disaster. Over five million people are in default even though Congress provides all borrowers with the […]
Last week was a busy one for the Federal Trade Commission. Among other things: FTC Acts to Ban Payday Lender From Industry, Forgive Illegal Debt Four Defendants Settle with the FTC for Their Alleged Role in Credit Card Laundering Scheme FTC Sends More than $1.7 Million in Refunds to People who Lost […]
More consumers than ever report falling prey to romance scammers, according to new Federal Trade Commission data that show consumers reported losing a record $304 million to the scams last year. A newly released data spotlight shows that the amount consumers reported losing to romance scammers is up about 50 percent since 2019, and has increased […]
by Paul Alan Levy Our latest case about the right to speak anonymously is in federal court in Chicago, flowing from a dispute between a prominent vlogger named Cristina Villegas and a plastic surgeon named David Shifrin who, Villegas complained, “botched my nose job.” Villegas posted a 23-minute-long YouTube video which recounts the inadequacies that […]