The Consumer Finanical Protection Bureau today issued its third annual report on oversight of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Among other things, the report provides an overview of debt-collection complaints the agency has received from consumers. The report: (1) provides background on the debt collection market; (2) summarizes the Bureau’sconsumer response function and the […]

Not this hard!  You can read about Theresa Amato's and my Don Quixote imitation here. 

This article by Andrew Sprung makes the case that the market for private health insurance generally has improved — in some cases, dramatically — for consumers after passage of the Affordable Care Act. And, as the article explains, under the ACA that market now must cover people with pre-existing conditions, which may be as many […]

Remember the $25 billion settlement with Bank of America, Citibank, and other major mortgage servicers over fraud and other shoddy mortgage lending practices associated with the financial meltdown of 2008 and 2009? (Read about the settlement here and here.) The court-appointed monitor, Joseph A. Smith, Jr., has issued a final report and a slew of associated data […]

As the national sports spotlight turns to college basketball, with its buzzer-beaters, office pools, and cinderella stories, Warren Buffett offers a fairy tale of his own: $1 billion for a perfect bracket. That's a perfect bracket — not just the best in the contest — so you have to pick more than five dozen games […]

The New York Times explains: As part of the $25 billion national mortgage servicing settlement two years ago, California and other states won a portion for home loan counseling and other educational services to help troubled homeowners avoid foreclosure. Kamala Harris, the state’s attorney general, secured the funds after long and tense negotiations with the […]

The Florida Supreme Court yesterday responded "yes" to this question certified to it from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh CIrcuit: DOES THE STATUTORY CAP ON WRONGFUL DEATH NONECONOMIC DAMAGES, FLA. STAT. § 766.118, VIOLATE THE RIGHT TO EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER ARTICLE I, SECTION 2 OF THE FLORIDA CONSTITUTION?  The Florida Supreme Court […]

After the collapse of the housing market in 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies coordinated enforcement activites to target mortgage fraud schemes. This week, DOJ’s Office of Inspector General released an “Audit Of The Department Of Justice’s Efforts To Address Mortgage Fraud.” The Washington Post summarizes the report’s conclusions as follows: “When […]

Following up on yesterday's report on Target's failure to prevent its data breach, listen to this NPR story on the same topic.