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Consumer Law

CL&P Blog

The contributors to this blog are a diverse group of lawyers and law professors who practice, teach, or write about consumer law and policy. Although the blog is hosted by Public Citizen's Consumer Justice Project, the views expressed here are solely those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions with which they are affiliated.

Post Frequency: 15.1/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 11:13:04

Important NCLC Report on Student Loans

Posted on March 04, 2008
The National Consumer Law Center has just issued this comprehensive 48-page report on private student loans entitled ?Paying the Price: The High Cost of Private Student Loans and the Dangers for Student Borrowers.? The report finds "that private student loans...

Desparately Seeking Data

Posted on March 04, 2008
By Alan White Unlike many other economic indicators, foreclosures are not surveyed or reported by the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or any government agency. Trying to measure the extent of the problem requires Google skills and detective...

ISP's Standing Up for Their Customers -- or Not

Posted on March 03, 2008
by Paul Alan Levy Last week I posted about the problem of an Internet Provider, Dynadot, that rolled over when the target of postings on the web site of one of its clients filed suit (in the now-notorious Wikileaks case)....

Victory in Wikileaks Case!

Posted on February 29, 2008
On Wednesday, Paul Levy posted about some of the consumer law implications of the Wikileaks controversy, a case in which a California federal judge issued an order shutting down a website for leaked documents exposing corporate and governmental misconduct...

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Industry and Republican Allies Gear up to Fight Moderate Consumer Health and Safety Bill

Posted on February 29, 2008
by David Arkush and Graham Steele Republicans and Democrats in the Senate recently spent weeks negotiating a moderate, bipartisan consumer product safety bill, the ?CPSC [Consumer Product Safety Commission] Reform Act of 2007? (S. 2663). After these negotiations concluded, and...

Anheuser-Busch and Miller continue down their deadly path

Posted on February 28, 2008
I?ve previously written about the reprehensible practice of Miller Brewing and Anheuser-Busch in spiking malt beverages with stimulants flavoring them in a way that attracts young drinkers. Today, CSPI announced that we have served formal notices of intent to sue...

Fed to Curb Credit Card Abuse

Posted on February 28, 2008
Here are the last two sentences of Chairman Bernanke's testimony in Congress yesterday: "Separately, we are actively reviewing potentially unfair and deceptive practices by issuers of credit cards. Using the Board's authority under the Federal Trade Commission Act, we expect...

Of Bailouts and Rescues

Posted on February 28, 2008
By Alan White Today's Wall Street Journal reports that Treasury Secretary Paulson, on behalf of the Bush Administration, categorically rejects any plan to "bail out" homeowners facing foreclosures with federal dollars, displaying a remarkable blind faith in the unregulated market...

New Hoofnagle Piece on Identity Theft

Posted on February 27, 2008
Chris Hoofnagle of Berkeley has been an important theorist on identity theft. He has a new piece out attempting to implement his theories. Here's the abstract: There is no reliable way for consumers, regulators, and businesses to assess the relative....

Advocate's view on HOPE NOW hotline

Posted on February 27, 2008
By Alan White Last week, the Wall Street Journal ran an article about the HOPE NOW foreclosure help hotline. HOPE NOW is an alliance of six large mortgage servicers, mortgage and securities industry trade groups, Neighborworks, the Homeownership Preservation Foundation...

Be Careful in Choosing Internet Providers -- Will They Defend Your Privacy?

Posted on February 27, 2008
by Paul Alan Levy Public Citizen jumped into a case where a federal judge in San Francisco tried, albeit without success, to shut down the entire Wikileaks web site, based on a claim by a Swiss bank that among the...

Freeze on Fremont Foreclosures (in Massachusetts)

Posted on February 27, 2008
by Alan White Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley persuaded a judge to order a 90-day statewide halt to foreclosures by Fremont Investment and Loan, so that Fremont could work out some of the defaults with borrowers. The press release includes...

Consumer Protection and Law Students

Posted on February 26, 2008
Here comes a self-serving post. In my view, legal education raises significant consumer issues for its chief consumers, students (you could argue that the clients that retain the services of law school graduates are also consumers of legal education, but...

Fitch projects 50% foreclosure rate

Posted on February 26, 2008
By Alan White In a new presentation entitled Update on U.S. RMBS, Performance, Expectations, Criteria, Fitch Ratings now projects that 50% of the subprime mortgages from the fourth quarter of 2006 in rated securitizations will end in foreclosure. They also...

Table of Contents for the Forthcoming Issue of the Journal of Consumer Affairs

Posted on February 25, 2008
Here is the table of contents for for the forthcoming Spring 2008 issue of Journal of Consumer Affairs (Volume 42, Number 1 ): 2008 Distinguished ACCI Fellows Editorial Prelude: Remembering Luminary Leaders Stewart M. Lee and E. Scott Maynes Brenda...

Astroturfing? You Decide

Posted on February 23, 2008
By Alan White With the avowed purpose of rebutting the policy research of the Center for Responsible Lending, a group calling itself the Consumers Rights League has launched a web site and garnered an article in Forbes critizing the work...

Times Reports on Federal Bailout for Mortgage Crisis, the Riegel v. Medtronic Medical Device Case, and CPSC

Posted on February 22, 2008
The lead story in today's Times reports that "the Bush administration and Congress are considering costly new proposals for the government to rescue hundreds of thousands of homeowners whose mortgages are higher than the value of their houses." According to...

Short Refis coming?

Posted on February 21, 2008
By Alan White A big stumbling block to renegotiating mortgages in danger of foreclosure is the reality that many homeowners now owe more than their home is worth. This situation is sometimes referred to as being "underwater." Servicers of securitized...

OCC's Response to Spitzer's Charge that the Bush Administration Worsened the Mortgage Crisis by Preempting State Laws

Posted on February 19, 2008
Last week, Brian blogged here about Governor Spitzer's claim that the Bush administration contributed to the mortgage crisis by preempting state attempts to bar predatory lending. Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan responded by issuing the following statement last...

One Option: Nationalization

Posted on February 18, 2008
By Alan White The British government decided Sunday to nationalize Northern Rock, the troubled U.K. mortgage bank, rather than permit its sale to private investors. Northern Rock, a mortgage lender that relied heavily on securitization, faced a classic bank run...

SSRN vs Law Journals

Posted on February 18, 2008
While consumer law may do poorly in top-ranked law journals, there is considerable interest in consumer law scholarship as measured by downloads of papers from the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). The ContractsProf blog recently noted that six of the...

Senate Negotiators Appear to Agree on CPSC Reform Bill

Posted on February 17, 2008
This article from yesterday's Washington Post reports that Democratic Senators Mark Pryor and Daniel Inouye and Republican Senator Ted Stevens have agreed on legislation to reform the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The article says that the bill would, among other...

Predatory Lending -- Short and to the Point

Posted on February 16, 2008
On Monday, the Washington Post published an article on payday lending in Virginia. Today, the Post published a letter to the editor written by someone named Leonard J. Koenick, whose letter was apparently prompted by Monday's article. Here it is:...

Who Publishes in Top Law Journals and Implications for Consumer Law Scholarship

Posted on February 15, 2008
One of my goals with this blog has been to raise the profile of consumer law among legal educators. Consumer protection affects all of us?as the effect of the subprime mortgage meltdown on the broader credit markets has demonstrated yet...

Criticism of Bush Administration Plans for Addressing the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Posted on February 14, 2008
The Times editorial page continues to monitor proposals for addressing the subprime mortgage meltdown. The most recent editorial, "Lifeline for Whom?," appeared yesterday. Here's an excerpt: In May last year, Senator Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, convened...

New Study Shows Disproportionate Numbers of Payday Lenders in Bible Belt and Mormon West

Posted on February 14, 2008
by Christopher Peterson A new study, conducted by Steven Graves and myself, finds a surprising relationship between populations of conservative Christian Americans and the proliferation of payday lenders. A draft of the study can be downloaded from SSRN, free of...

Eliot Spitzer: Bush Administration Stymied States In Efforts to Stop Predatory Lending Crisis

Posted on February 14, 2008
by Brian Wolfman Check out this op-ed by Eliot Spitzer in today's Washington Post. The N.Y. Governor and former N.Y. attorney general argues that the Bush Administration, by insisting that federal law preempted the states' efforts to curb predatory lending,...

Article on Peer Promotions and False Advertising Law

Posted on February 13, 2008
Ellen P. Goodman of Rutgers--Camden has written an article on how "peer promotions," such as postings on Facebook or blogs, fit into false advertising law. The article, Peer Promotions and False Advertising Law, 58 South Carolina Law Review (2007), can...

Bush Administration Unveils Foreclosure Reprieve Program

Posted on February 13, 2008
This article in today's Washington Post explains the Bush Administration's joint program with six large mortgage lenders -- Countrywide Financial, Bank of America, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo -- to offer short reprieves to homeowners on...

CPSC and NHTSA Recalls for January 2008

Posted on February 10, 2008
For January 2008, here are the product recalls instituted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission; and the vehicle and vehicle equipment recalls instituted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

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