A settlement obtained by the Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the Florida Attorney General permanently shuts down an Orlando-based operation that bilked seniors by using pre-recorded robocalls to sell them supposedly free medical alert systems. The FTC's press release is here. The Stipulated Order and Permanent Injunction is here.
That's the topic of Consumer Financing Pre-Dispute Mandatory Arbitration: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Developments by law professor Louis Del Duca. Here is the abstract: Judicial precedent with regards to mandatory pre-dispute arbitration agreements has given such clauses substantial protection, resulting in their widespread inclusion in boilerplate contract language. However, recent findings and assertions from […]
by Jeff Sovern My coauthor, Paul Kirgis, has posted an excellent response to Alan S. Kaplinsky and Mark J. Levin's comments on the CFPB Monitor on our arbitration study. His response also has the virtue of being briefer than mine. While Paul's post is worth reading in full, here is my favorite part: Citizens cannot […]
by Jeff Sovern Alan S. Kaplinsky and Mark J. Levin, in their comments at the CFPB Monitor, wrote about the contract we showed the survey respondents: "The hypothetical card agreement used in the St. John’s study did not even contain an opt-out provision, although a substantial number of arbitration clauses in use today contain such […]
by Deepak Gupta Since its inception, this blog has covered the pernicious practice of prosecutors who rent out their name and authority to private for-profit debt collectors. As readers may recall, these debt collectors use official-looking letterhead to threaten consumers who have accidentally bounced checks for household purchases — consumers are told they'll face criminal […]
Please read this Deal Book article by Jessica Silver-Greenberg. Here's a bit of it: In the netherworld of consumer debt, there are zombies: bills that cannot be killed even by declaring personal bankruptcy. Tens of thousands of Americans who went through bankruptcy are still haunted by debts long after — sometimes as long as a […]
by Jeff Sovern I am pleased to report that Ballard Spahr’s Alan Kaplinsky and Mark Levin have commented on our arbitration study at their very informative and useful blog, CFPB Monitor (We’re still in the stage of soliciting comments and hoping to receive useful feedback which we can use to improve the draft, so if […]
Wading into the the net neutrality debate this week, President Obama came out strongly for it, urging the FCC to reject its proposed "fast lane" approach to regulating the internet (which we've previously discussed here) and to ensure equal access. Yesterday, the National Law Journal looked back and found support for the President's position in […]
Check out PrivacyGrade.org, which analyzed over 1 million applications and ranked them based on how the extent of an application's collection of information about the user matched up with the user's expectations. A key finding from the site, reports CNN Money, is that some of the worst apps in terms of privacy are apps aimed […]
The Federal Communications Commission has in recent years received several petitions concerning the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Responding to some of them, the FCC last week issued an order confirming that all faxed advertisements must include an opt-out notice. The FCC's notice explains: The FCC’s rules require that a “facsimile advertisement that is sent to […]