by Jeff Sovern Consumers have no legal obligation to pay time-barred debts and suing on such a debt or threatening to sue on one violates the FDCPA. But are consumers ever better off, aside from feeling better for meeting their obligations, by paying such debts? When a statute of limitations is less than seven years, as is […]
Here. Excerpt: While ACA maintains that its 3,500 members have "long been committed to making debt collection a more consumer-friendly experience," its idea of friendly stretches credulity. While the consumer bureau has proposed that collectors limit phone attempts to reach debtors to six a week, the ACA's idea was quite different — to limit "collection call attempts to no more […]
Here (free access). Excerpt: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump called for a temporary suspension of all new federal regulations during a speech Tuesday, but even if he wins the White House, stalling or rolling back financial rules may prove to be beyond his reach. * * * "I don't think a full-on moratorium is even […]
Mitch Zeller, the head of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Tobacco Products, has posted Protecting the Public and Especially Kids from the Dangers of Tobacco Products, Including E-Cigarettes, Cigars and Hookah Tobacco. Here's an excerpt: This month, for the first time, FDA will be able to help protect the public, and especially kids, from […]
We received the following call for papers: The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is hosting a research and policy conference on Financial Innovation: Online Lending to Households and Small Businesses, to be held in Washington, DC on December 2, 2016. The purpose of the conference is to bring together academics, industry participants, […]
Richard Warner of Chicago-Kent and Robert H. Sloan of the University of Illinois at Chicago's Computer Science Department have written Defending Our Data: The Need for Information We Do Not Have. Here's the abstract: Data breaches occur at the rate of over two a day. The aggregate social cost is high. Security experts have long […]
by Jenny Hyde The Federal Trade Commission has sued 1-800 Contacts, the largest online retailer of contact lenses in the United States, alleging that it unlawfully orchestrated and now maintains a web of anticompetitive agreements with rival online contact lens sellers that suppress competition in certain online search advertising auctions and that restrict truthful and […]
Max N. Helveston of DePaul has written Consumer Protection in the Age of Big Data, 93 Washington University Law Review (2016). Here is the abstract: The Big Data revolution is upon us. Technological advances in the degree to which third parties can record information about individuals, along with increases in the use of predictive analytics, are transforming […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday finalized new measures to ensure that homeowners and struggling borrowers are treated fairly by mortgage servicers. The updated rule requires servicers to provide certain borrowers with foreclosure protections more than once over the life of the loan, clarifies borrower protections when the servicing of a loan is transferred, and […]
Max N. Helveston of DePaul has written Regulating Digital Markets, NYU Journal of Law & Business, Forthcoming. Here is the abstract: It has become popular for scholars and non-academic commentators to claim that technological advances have reshaped consumer markets and empowered individuals. Some have argued that the digitization of commerce has leveled the playing field […]