From Slate, here. A good plain-English piece to share with folks who don't understand how corporations are limiting access to the courts.
NPR's Morning Edition this morning covered this pending case, in which borrowers assert a variety of unlawful practices. The New York State Department of Financial Services is also investigating. For instance, one couple says that Ocwen charged fees for "property preservation" even though the couple lived in the home, force-placed insurance even though the couple […]
… is the goal of this Public Citizen report, worth a read. This excerpt from the introduction gives a flavor: As Google has continued to flourish, it has become ever bolder and more sophisticated in its methods to collect and combine information about individuals to generate revenue. Most Google users are likely aware that Google […]
by Paul Alan Levy Late last week I attended a conference on Social Media Liability at Suffolk University Law School. My own talk, about practical considerations in litigating online free speech issues, is not yet in publishable form, but a fascinating empirical study of the terms of use of several hundred "social networking sites" was […]
A new study has found that more than half of calls to U.S. poison control centers about energy drinks like Red Bull and Monster are for children younger than 6, some suffering seizures and heart problems. Bloomberg has the story. "The study bolsters the idea that energy drinks aren’t safe for children and should carry […]
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 […]