When I first saw the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Elster v. Vidal, won by my friends and former colleagues Jon Taylor and Greg Beck, holding that the First Amendment forbade the United States Patent and Trademark Office from withholding registration of the proposed trademark “Trump Too […]
On Wednesday, I blogged about Roseanna Sommers’ important new arbitration study. One point I want to highlight about the study is that it makes clear that consumers don’t understand arbitration opt-outs at all. First, some background: some companies insert in their arbitration clauses a provision that allows consumers to opt out of arbitration if they […]
In March, we posted a link to Penn’s David A. Hoffman’s article, Defeating the Empire of Forms, forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review. For those who haven’t found the time to read the article, you can listen to Alan Kaplinsky’s interview with Professor Hoffman about the article at Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast here. […]
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released a new Supervisory Highlights report describing unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts or practices across many consumer financial products. For example, auto lenders have originated loan balances above the real value of the car being purchased and engaged in illegal collection practices while servicing these loans. The latest edition […]
The Federal Trade Commission has announced a claims process by which consumers who purchased a DreamCloud mattress and were influenced by the company’s claims that the product was made with U.S. materials can apply for a refund. Details are here.
Roseanna Sommers of Michigan has written an important new paper, What do consumers understand about predispute arbitration agreements? An empirical investigation. Here’s the abstract: The results of a survey of 1,071 adults in the United States reveal that most consumers do not pay attention to, let alone understand, arbitration clauses in their everyday lives. The vast […]
Following up on my July 22 post on FedNow: Mark Budnitz of Georgia State reminds me that one issue with FedNow that may create issues for consumers is its incorporation of UCC Article 4A’s wire transfer rules, even though Article 4A’s rules were not written for transactions involving consumers, and so lack safeguards that are […]
Christine posted on Thursday about the risks of FedNow fraud. So you might wonder why, or even if, FedNow would be a positive for consumers. While FedNow obviously won’t be a positive for those who are scammed into using it to enrich fraudsters, it might be positive for consumers in a number of ways. For […]
The Federal Reserve today launched FedNow, a new payment system that participating banks and credit unions can use to facilitate faster payments for their customers. So far, according to the Fed, 35 “early-adopting” financial institutions can receive payments instantly through FedNow. Does this new system, which facilitates sending and receiving payments at any day and […]