Noteworthy news from this week: the Legal Aid Society in New York City sued the city and its mayor to force them to implement new laws that expand eviction protections for residents vulnerable to homelessness. The Legal Aid Society filed a class action on behalf of New Yorkers eligible for a new program that provides […]
Here. Excerpt: [F]or the past three years, having incorrect information on a report has been the No. 1 complaint made to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to CFPB data compiled by Consumer Reports. What’s more, the number of complaints about credit report errors more than doubled in recent years, from 165,129 in 2021 to […]
Carlie Malone and Paige Marta Skiba, both of Vanderbilt, have written Installment Loans. Here’s the abstract: Installment loans have increasingly replaced traditional payday loans in the short-term, small-dollar credit market. Installment loans, often offered by the same lenders who provide payday loans, have larger principal amounts, longer repayment periods, and lower interest rates relative to payday […]
Carrie Floyd of Michigan has written New Tech, Old Problem: The Rise of Virtual Rent-to-Own Agreements, forthcoming at 65 Boston College Law Review 3 (2024). Here is the abstract: This Article explores how fintech has disrupted the traditional rent-to-own (RTO) industry, giving rise to new, virtual RTO agreements (VirTOs). These VirTOs have enabled the RTO […]
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday in favor of consumer interests in Department of Agriculture Rural Development Rural Housing Service v. Kirtz, a case argued by Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney Nandan Joshi. The case concerned the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which allows consumers to sue creditors for failing to correct inaccurate credit information that […]
This week marked the end of an extended public comment period for the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed rule to rein in unfair and deceptive fees across the marketplace. Notably, 19 state attorneys general submitted a joint letter of support for the FTC’s proposal. The Commission proposes to address bait-and-switch pricing structures to prevent business from […]
The FCC issued a declaratory ruling that recognizes calls made with AI-generated voices fall under the TCPA’s restrictions on “artificial or prerecorded voice” calls. The declaratory ruling and accompanying statements are available here.
The Guardian reports: “Opioid manufacturers and other major corporations are pushing legislation to strip away state laws that have been used to sue the pharmaceutical industry for hundreds of millions of dollars over the worst drug epidemic in US history. The influential rightwing pressure group the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which is funded by […]
David Berman has written Lending Experimentalism: A New Regulatory Approach to Payday Loans, Forthcoming in the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law Policy, Here is the abstract: Payday loans entangle consumers with few alternatives in catastrophically harmful cycles of borrowing. But because of their design, payday loans are vexingly difficult to regulate effectively. This article explains how […]
Last summer, the San Francisco City Attorney announced he was investigating former magazine U.S. News and World Report over its hospital rankings, noting “Consumers use these rankings to make consequential health care decisions, and yet there is little understanding that the rankings are fraught and that U.S. News has financial relationships with the hospitals it […]