Here. An excerpt: The reality is that credit-reporting firms have been required for decades to ensure the accuracy of consumers' files. They're not doing us a favor. They're just finally saying that they'll follow the law. "For years, the credit-reporting agencies have scoffed at the law," said Scott Maurer, a law professor at Santa Clara […]
The Huffington Post reports today: Facing the prospect of imminent oversight by a newly created government regulator, the much-reviled payday loan industry’s lobbying machine surged into action. The campaign to blunt the power of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau included the usual monetary contributions to key lawmakers and hiring of well-connected lobbyists. But one little-known […]
The New York Times reports today on financial companies' use of forced arbitration provisions to eliminate servicemembers' rights. Over the years, Congress has given service members a number of protections — some dating to the Civil War — from repossessions and foreclosures. Efforts to maintain that special status for service members has run into resistance […]
Prolific class action scholar (and former Scalia clerk) Brian Fitzpatrick of Vanderbilt Law has just posted to SSRN an interesting new paper foreseeing and lamenting the effects of his former boss's handiwork in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion and American Express v. Italian Colors (both cases in which I had the privilege of representing the losing […]
by Steve Gardner On Friday the 13th, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion roundly rejecting almost every defense food companies use to try to avoid getting to the truth of the matter, in Reid v. Johnson & Johnson. The summary by court staff sets up the facts well: McNeil declared on Benecol’s label that the […]
This multi-part series is well worth a read. Here's a flavor from the summary: Debt collection horror stories are nothing new. But there's a whole other side to the industry that no one’s talking about: collectors hired by government agencies to hunt down debtors…. [G]overnment debt collectors are rarely held to the same consumer protection […]
Fair Warning reports today on online website selling used cars by matching buyers with car owners. Claiming not to be car "dealers," the sites do not necessarily comply with consumer protection rules that apply to traditional used car dealers. Read "Used Car Startups Do a Wheelie Around Consumer Protection Rules." Used Car Startups Do a […]
Here. An excerpt: In the Big Business narrative, arbitration is a far better place for consumers than a nasty-wasty court. Lack of choice is a better choice! Well, this week, a big, fat government report blew that fiction away. * * * Companies, it turns out, weren't using mandatory arbitration clauses to protect us. […]
"Since 2005, student borrowers have been unable to discharge their private student loans through the process of bankruptcy. But that could soon change after a group of [13] senators introduced a bill aimed at addressing the current student debt crisis by restoring the bankruptcy code to hold private student loans in the same regard as other private […]