by Brian Wolfman The major consumer credit scoring company, FICO, devised a model (first constructed in 1989) that produces what is known as a credit score. So, almost any consumer with any sort of credit history has what is known of as a FICO score. The basic FICO score ranges from 300 (very very bad) […]
Peter A. Holland of Maryland has written Junk Justice: A Statistical Analysis of 4,400 Lawsuits Filed by Debt Buyers, 26 Loyola Consumer Law Reporter 179 (2014). Here's the abstract: Debt buyers have flooded courts nationwide with collection lawsuits against consumers. This article reports the findings from the broadest in-depth study of debt buyer litigation outcomes […]
Read this article by Kate Cox on the lack of competition in the broadband industry in the U.S. It's chock full of maps showing that, in many areas, there is no competition. Here's how Cox starts: When announcing Comcast’s intention to buy Time Warner Cable, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts called cable a “highly competitive and […]
For reasons we've discussed many times before, class actions are important and powerful tools for holding bad actors accountable. But sometimes the settlements they produce aren't as beneficial to class members as one would hope. For an useful and accessible discussion of the types of problems that can arise in some class action settlements, check […]
by Jeff Sovern In a column last week, The Wild West of Privacy, Times columnist Joe Nocera called for, among other things, regulating data brokers. In response, I wrote a letter to the Times, which they ran here. Here's what I said: Joe Nocera argues that data brokers should be obliged to tell consumers what […]
Here. A look at the bigger picture, and a lot of sage advice.
As reported by the Guardian and other news outlets, Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation is going to great lengths to keep Pennsylvania environmental activist Vera Scroggins out of sight and out of earshot. So much so that the company obtained an injunction barring Scroggins not only from Cabot-owned properties but also all properties in the […]
The number of obese people has skyrocketed in recent years, which has focused some lawmakers on discrimination against obese people, including in employment. Some jurisdictions have enacted laws against this type of employment discrimination. In Legal Largesse or Big, Fat Failure: Do Weight Discrimination Laws Improve Employment Outcomes of the Obese?, Jennifer Shinall looks at […]
Last week, Brian noted that DropBox has added a forced arbitration clause with a class-action ban to its terms of use, and observed that the "opt-out" provision was a "public relations gambit," not a serious effort to allow consumers to make an informed choice about whether to give up the right to go to court. […]