The Wall Street Journal reports: "Mick Mulvaney, as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has softened the agency’s hard-charging approach that financial companies had long complained about. One year after his appointment, the industry is pleased, but not fully satisfied. Mr. Mulvaney, appointed by President Trump last November, over the past year has […]
I missed this last week: The Associated Press reported last Tuesday on a Department of Education audit of Navient, the nation’s third largest student loan servicing companies. The audit found that Navient may have driven tens of thousands of borrowers struggling with their debts into higher-cost repayment plans. "The conclusions of the 2017 audit, which […]
by Jeff Sovern With the Democrats' capture of the House, Maxine ("Auntie Maxine") Waters is expected to chair the House Financial Service Committee in the new Congress. South Carolina's Patrick McHenry has tossed his hat in the ring to be the ranking member of the Committee, and has drawn support from others who were rumored […]
The Hill reports: Two senators are pushing a new bipartisan bill to crack down on illegal robocall scams, raising the maximum civil fine for violators to $10,000 per call. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), the current chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) on Friday unveiled their Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and […]
Consumer Union, the non-profit consumer-advocacy organization founded in 1936, has changed its name to Consumer Reports Advocacy. The new website is here. The well-known Consumer Reports magazine is the work of Consumers Union, and now the organization and the magazine will be more closely linked by name.
CBS News reports that "[o]verstating a debtor's balance — also called 'overbiffing' — is the latest outrage in unfair debt collection." The article is here.
The Hill reports that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was sued Tuesday for allegedly failing to cancel student debt for people whose for-profit colleges have shut down. Last month a court ruled that the Obama-era debt regulations had to be implemented after more than a year of delays by DeVos. Yesterday, however, a California legal […]
by Jeff Sovern The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act provides consumers a variety of protections. Collectors, for example, are barred from making false statements and engaging in unfair practices, and are obliged to give consumers certain disclosures. But the American Bar Association wants to excuse lawyers "engaged in litigation activities" from complying with the […]
That's the topic of this article by Karen Sloan. Here's an excerpt: A group of Harvard law students aims to pressure Kirkland & Ellis to drop its use of mandatory arbitration for employees by encouraging their classmates to boycott the firm during the upcoming summer associate recruiting cycle. Organizers of the boycott hope that starving the firm […]
The New York Times reports today: The students attended institutions with pragmatic names like the Minnesota School of Business and others whose branding evoked ivy-draped buildings and leafy quads, like Corinthian Colleges. Tens of thousands of them say they are alike in one respect: They were victims of fraud, left with useless degrees and crushing […]