The LA Times reports: The city of Los Angeles accused banking giants Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. of a “continuous pattern and practice” of mortgage discrimination that led to a wave of foreclosures, reduced property tax revenue and increased costs for city services. In twin lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court, the city […]
In a follow-up to its three-part series on the tax-lien/foreclosure machine in Washington, D.C., the Washington Post has just published this investigative report on Aeon Financial, a secretive organization that bought up tax liens in D.C. (and elsewhere) and is making millions off of fees and foreclosures. Here's an excerpt: The firm that threatened to […]
Robert L. Clarke of Bracewell & Giuliani LLP and Todd J. Zywicki of George Mason University (Zywicki notes in an "about the authors" that he is a former director of the FTC's Office of Policy Planning but omits his links to the industry) have written Payday Lending, Bank Overdraft Protection, and Fair Competition at the Consumer […]
Adam J. Levitin of Georgetown has written The Paper Chase: Securitization, Foreclosure, and the Uncertainty of Mortgage Title, 63 Duke Law Journal 637 (2013). Here is the abstract: The mortgage foreclosure crisis raises legal questions as important as its economic impact. Questions that were straightforward and uncontroversial a generation ago today threaten the stability of […]
by Brian Wolfman As explained in this article by Christopher Jensen, Hyundai is trying to "help" its customers by forcing them to arbitrate disputes over warranty coverage. That's awfully nice of the company. Once a dispute occurs, customers might be terribly confused over whether they should arbitrate, engage in some other form of informal resolution, or […]
Here, with links to purchase the articles. The issue includes remarks from a program at the 2013 AALS Annual Meeting jointly sponsored by The Sections on Poverty Law and Clinical Legal Education, entitled The Debt Crisis and the National Response: Big Changes or Tinkering at the Edges? The list includes. The articles include: "Owner Finance! No Banks Needed!" […]
Last Tuesday, just in time for the Nation's gift-buying orgy (which now starts on Thanksgiving morning), U.S. PIRG issued its 28th annual Trouble in Toyland report, which surveys the dangers to kids posed by toys. The report covers toxins (such as lead, antimony, arsenic, and cadmium), choking hazards, excessively loud toys, laceration hazards, and strangulation risks. […]
The Project on Student Debt has issued Student Debt and the Class of 2012.That report found that Seven in 10 college seniors who graduated in 2012 had student loan debt, with an average of$29,400 for those with loans. The national share of seniors graduating with loans rose in recentyears, from 68 percent in 2008 to […]
by Jeff Sovern Some of my students tell me they have received the following class action notice: IF YOU RECEIVED A CALL THROUGH THE USE OF AN AUTOMATIC TELEPHONE DIALING SYSTEM AND/OR A PRERECORDED VOICE FROM DISCOVER TO YOUR CELLULAR TELEPHONE BETWEEN NOVEMBER 30, 2007 AND SEPTEMBER 10, 2013, THIS NOTICE DESCRIBES YOUR RIGHTS IN […]
Here is a helpful (and entertainingly written) catalogue of various nasty consumer practices to watch out for, along with some basic advice about protecting yourself as a consumer (to the extent you can). Courtesy of the Consumer Law Center of Neighborhood Legal Services of Greater Cleveland. (HT: Mark Wiseman.)