Is It Just Me, Or Is Hensarling Getting Even Nastier to Cordray?

by Jeff Sovern The Hill reports that Hensarling has demanded an investigation into whether Cordray violated election law.  This follows the Financial Services Committee (chaired by Hensarling) staff report saying the Committee should consider holding Cordray in contempt (a story on the CFPB reply is here). And if you listen to the Committee's hearings during which […]

American Banker: New Wells scandal harms effort to nix CFPB arbitration rule

by Jeff Sovern Last week, Gretchen Morgenson at the Times broke the story of how hundreds of thousands of auto loan borrowers at Wells Fargo had been charged for car insurance they didn't need. Now Kate Berry at the American Banker reports on the arbitration connection: it turns out that many of the contracts provide […]

Biden’s Briefing: Why we need to save the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

by Jeff Sovern Here.  Biden's Briefing is a podcast which  plays "[w]hat Joe wants you to know. Every day, Vice President Joe Biden looks to the news across the nation that's sparking conversation, sharing the articles and opinions that he's reading and might be of interest to you."  For today's episode, he chose the essay […]

Still at work … CFPB warns companies against tricking consumers into expensive pay-by-phone fees

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today issued a bulletin warning companies about tricking consumers into expensive pay-by-phone fees. The CFPB is concerned about companies potentially misleading consumers about the purpose and amount of certain pay-by-phone fees or keeping them in the dark about much cheaper payment options. The bulletin also reviews guidelines to help consumer […]

Poll Finds Republican Voters Support CFPB, Tougher Financial Rules, Oppose Forced Arbitration,

by Jeff Sovern Republican pollster Robert Carpenter has written Republicans beware: Your voters like tough rules on Wall Street in the Washington Examiner. Excerpt: Republicans do the bidding of Wall Street at their own peril. That is the message of a new poll that I helped conduct around financial reform and consumer protection last month […]

Times: Consumers May Be More Trusting of Ads Than Marketers Think

Here.  The first three paragraphs read: The early results from a recent study that Kent Grayson, a Northwestern University marketing professor, did on consumer skepticism left him feeling a little, well, skeptical. So he ran the trials a few more times. Each time, when participants were asked what they thought of modern advertising techniques, they […]

Bizarre attack on CFPB director Richard Cordray by former Trump campaign head Corey Lewandowski

Former Trump campaign head Corey Lewandowski went on Meet the Press today. The host of the show, Chuck Todd, was questioning Lewandowski on the same things everyone else on the Sunday shows had been talking about: the failure of the republican controlled Congress to repeal the ACA, chaos and personnel turnover in the White House, the […]

Klass Paper Critiques Restatement of Consumer Contracts Treatment of Privacy Policies

Gregory Klass of Georgetown critiques the draft Restatement of Consumer Contracts treatment of privacy policies in The Quantitative Study of Privacy-Policy Decisions in the Draft Restatement of Consumer Contracts.  Here is the abstract: The draft Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts includes six quantitative studies of judicial decisions, each used to support a rule […]

20 State AGs Urge Congress to Protect Legal Rights of Victimized Consumers

A coalition of 20 Attorneys General sent a letter today urging U.S. Senate leaders not to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Arbitration Rule, which stops companies from forcing consumers to sign away their legal rights. The press release of the Massachusetts Attorney General explains: The House recently passed a Joint Resolution of Disapproval that […]