Here. Excerpt: [T]his bill doesn’t fix what’s ailing the system. Instead, it seeks to eliminate group litigation altogether. If it becomes law, the bill could prevent consumers from litigating together the next time a company like Volkswagen masks its emissions and thwart General Motors’ victims from joining forces to recover if their car ignition turns […]
Here. The LA Times reports on the study in this story, headlined, Here's why Wells Fargo forces its customers into arbitration: It wins most of the time.
Here. Excerpt: Debt collectors will be required to comply with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which is designed to curtail abusive or deceptive behavior. * * * Critics say collection agencies have been known to call delinquent debtors six or more times a week, give inaccurate information and use dubious methods to force payment. […]
In its decision issued today in McGill v. Citibank, the California Supreme Court has unanimously held that arbitration agreements can't block consumers from seeking injunctive relief that benefits the general public under California's Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA) and Unfair Competition Law (UCL). The decision strikes a blow against corporate efforts to use arbitration not just to […]
Last Friday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published its 2016 Consumer Response Annual Report, available here. The CFPB offered a few key takeaways: The CFPB handled 291,400 consumer complaints in 2016, a 7 percent increase over complaints handled in 2015. Debt collection, credit reporting and mortgages were the top three most-complained-about consumer financial products and […]
Here, from Insidearm.com. The headline is CFPB Director Cordray's Testimony Gets Off to a Heated Start
It's often claimed that patent law and its enforcement (or not) affects consumer well-being. We know, for instance, that the presence of a patent (or not) often has a significant effect on a drug's price. And drug companies maintain that patent protection promotes innovation, in turn, they say, benefiting consumers. (For more on that topic, […]
That's the name of this article by Steven Harper (subscription possibly required). Harper begins by telling us that his concerns over [Secretary of Education Betsy] DeVos's willingness to deal effectively with student-loan policy "goes far beyond the embarrassing ignorance on display at DeVos’ confirmation hearing. . . . She knows nothing about basic educational policy, the decades-old Individuals […]
by Jeff Sovern First, Cordray. Here's what Politico's Morning Money reported: CORDRAY IS … STILL THERE – Compass Point's Isaac Boltansky and Lukas Davaz: "With a decision in the PHH case review unlikely until next year, and the path for a legislative compromise on the Bureau's governance structure becoming hazier by the day, all indications […]
This article by Bobby Allyn discusses a program, begun by the Obama Administration in 2015, to step up use of private law firms to collect student-loan debt through federal-court lawsuits. The program apparently includes obtaining judgments and then placing liens on poor people's homes. Allyn's article focuses on law suits filed in federal court in Philadelphia, […]