On New Year's Eve, New York's Governor Hochul signed the Fair Consumer Judgment Interest Act, which caps interest rates on money judgments arising out of consumer debt, including medical and student debt, at two percent. The law, which will take effect in four months, will apply to all money judgments arising from consumer debt, including […]
Consumer Reports has this guide to retailers with the best and worst return policies.
The Federal Trade Commission has launched a "rulemaking aimed at combatting government and business impersonation fraud, a pernicious and prevalent problem that has grown worse during the pandemic. Impersonators use all methods of communication to trick their targets into trusting that they are the government or an established business and then trade on this trust […]
From a Federal Trade Commission press release: A group of phantom debt collectors will be permanently banned from the debt collection industry and required to surrender the contents of numerous bank and investment accounts under the terms of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC’s complaint against South Carolina-based National Landmark Logistics, filed […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a series of orders to five companies offering “buy now, pay later” credit. The orders to collect information on the risks and benefits of these fast-growing loans went to Affirm, Afterpay, Klarna, PayPal, and Zip. The CFPB explained that it is concerned about accumulating debt, regulatory arbitrage, and […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a report on wide-ranging violations of law in 2021. The report covers violations in areas including mortgage servicing, fair lending, payday, and remittances. A press release with a link to the report is here.
I first posted about this case about early last month. In releasing documents electronically pursuant to a public records request, a local government body in New Jersey made a rookie error: using software (presumably Word) to perform redactions in a manner that was easily undone when the requester opened the provided PDF documents using his […]
Susan Block-Lieb of Fordham and Edward J. Janger of Brooklyn have written Fit for its Ordinary Purpose: Implied Warranties and Common Law Duties for Consumer Finance Contracts, 59 Houston Law Review 3 (2021). Here’s the abstract: The history of consumer goods and consumer credit markets presents an anomaly: market transactions for consumer goods and credit […]
Michael Blasie of Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson Law has written The Rise of Plain Language Laws, University of Miami Law Review, 2022 Forthcoming. Here is the abstract: When lawmakers enacted 778 plain language laws across the United States, no one noticed. Apart from a handful, these laws went untracked and unstudied. Without study, large questions remain […]
Andrea Chandrasekher of California, Davis has written An Empirical Investigation of Diversity in U.S. Arbitration. Here is the abstract: For decades, the United States system of arbitration has been subject to nearly constant public criticism. Calling arbitration a rigged judicial system, consumer and employee rights groups have voiced opposition to the practice of “forced arbitration” whereby […]