The CFPB announced last Friday the planned formation of a "Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law." According to the Bureau, "[t]he taskforce will examine the existing legal and regulatory environment facing consumers and financial services providers and report recommendations on ways to improve and strengthen consumer financial laws and regulations to CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger." […]
Jessica LaVoice and Domonkos F. Vamossy, both of the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Economics, have written Racial Disparities in Debt Collection. Here is the abstract: A distinct set of disadvantages experienced by black Americans increases their likelihood of experiencing negative financial shocks, decreases their ability to mitigate the impact of such shocks, and ultimately […]
NPR reported today on 5 ways that the Trump Administration has undermined the Affordable Care Act. Among the takeaways: Overall, [Professor] Nicholas Bagley says, the ACA has been "pretty resilient to everything, so far, that the Trump administration has thrown at it." Some of Trump's efforts to hobble the law have been caught up in […]
After reading the post below, reader Ted Mermin of California Low-Income Consumer Coalition emailed: Last week the Governor signed a groundbreaking law providing an automatic exemption from bank levy for the last $1724 in a debtor’s account. According to the law’s findings, debt collectors routinely clean out consumers’ bank accounts, leaving nothing to pay for […]
California's Governor Newsom today signed into law legislation intended to to protect consumers from predatory lending practices that create debt traps for families already struggling financially. The bill bars payday lenders from charging high interest rates – which in the past have soared as high as 200 percent – on loans between $2,500 and $10,000. […]
Next week, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger will deliver the statutory “Semi-Annual Report of the CFPB” to the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. On his blog, US PIRG's Ed Mierzwinski suggests questions that the committee members should ask, here.
A federal court has entered a temporary restraining order against Utah-based Zurixx, LLC and affiliated companies, which the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Utah Division of Consumer Protection (DCP) allege have used deceptive promises of big profits to lure consumers into real estate seminars costing thousands of dollars. The order prohibits Zurixx from making […]
Despite a court order barring the Education Department from collecting on the federal student loans of former Corinthian College students, the agency continued to pursue the debts. Some former students had their paychecks garnished or tax refunds seized by the government. The students' recently moved to hold Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt. DeVos and […]
by Paul Alan Levy It always happens during the presidential election season. This year, a bogus DMCA takedown was aimed at a video posted to Twitter by Donald Trump. Promoting his wild conspiracy theories about potential election opponent Joseph Biden, Trump fiddled with the first fifteen seconds of the video for the Nickelback musical number […]
Damian Paletta at the Washington Post has written Federal government has dramatically expanded exposure to risky mortgages, effectively asking whether conditions are forming for another homeowner mortgage crisis of the severity associated with the Great Recession. Some excerpts: The federal government has dramatically expanded its exposure to risky mortgages, as federal officials over the past […]