We have reported here and here about the high level of errors in credit reports. The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives consumers the right to have erroneous credit reports corrected. But the consumer needs to prove the error to the credit reporting agency. This article by Kelly Dilworth describes "10 surefire steps" to get errors […]
Nearly a year and a half ago, we covered the topic of drug industry influence on medical journals and research. The lead story in yesterday's Washington Post treats the topic in detail, noting that even the most prestigious medical journals have trouble avoiding bias in favor of the industry. The Post piece focuses on a […]
CL&B blogger Alan M. White of CUNY has written Losing the Paper – Mortgage Assignments, Note Transfers and Consumer Protection, 24 Loyola Consumer Law Review 468 (2012). Here's the abstract: In this article, I survey the state of the mortgage loan transfer system, the legal rules that govern it, and the widening gap between those […]
This three-decade study of the effectiveness of mammography to screen for breast cancer is sure to provoke controversy. Mammography has detected many breast cancers and saved lives, but, the study says, mammography over-diagnoses — that is, in many circumstances, it purports to find problems that never would have progressed to clinical breast cancer. Here is […]
Last June, we told you about a federal-court suit filed by a Texas Bank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the 60 Plus Association challenging various provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Here is the complaint. The federal government has now moved […]
Creola Johnson of Ohio State has written Congress Protected the Troops: Can the New CFPB Protect Civilians from Payday Lending? 69 Washington & Lee Law Review 649 (2012). Here's the abstract: In 2007, Congress enacted a law, commonly referred to as the Military Lending Act (MLA), which placed a 36% interest rate cap on several […]
Recently, on this blog, Jeff Sovern went after George Will's attack on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, rightly noting that the CFPB's exercise of its regulatory and enforcement powers generally are not terribly different from what regulatory agencies have been doing for decades. Now, Jean Braucher has posted this extensive response to Will's piece. In doing […]
Keeping health care costs down under the Affordable Care Act depends significantly on increasing particiption in private health care plans (which, if the Act works as contemplated, would be spurred in part by subsidies provided under the law). As explained in this article by Sarah Kliff, because many people do not know about the law's […]
Just in time for the holidays, U.S. PIRG warns us about all the toys that will choke, cut, and otherwise harm our kids in its "Trouble in Toyland" report. And read PIRG's tips for avoiding the purchase of hazardous toys in the first place. Here's the report's executive summary: The 2012 Trouble in Toyland report […]
by Jeff Sovern For the credit reporting section of our casebook, I've been looking into studies of credit report errors. The FTC is in the process of conducting a long-term study of that subject, and along the way has conducted some pilot studies. One such pilot study subjected the credit reports of 128 people to in-depth […]