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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

Jeff Gelles Columns on How Opting Out of Overdraft Protections Didn't Help One Consumer

Posted on December 02, 2009
Here and here. The consumer had opted out of overdraft coverage of his debit card charges and had moved money into his account to cover the charges, but still got hit with $630 in fees for overdrafts.

Federal Housing Administration To Make It Tougher To Get A Home Loan

Posted on December 02, 2009
The days of "just sign here and worry about payment later" may have really ended in the home mortgage market. The Washington Post reports here that the Federal Housing Administration is proposing to toughen rules for home-loan borrowing in two...

American children are not getting enough to eat

Posted on December 01, 2009
The New York Times reports that one in four American kids are now on food stamps. But, only two thirds of those who qualify actually receive assistance.

HAMP class action filed

Posted on December 01, 2009
New York City homeowners have filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Aurora Loan Servicing has systematically breached its contract with Fannie Mae to receive subsidies in return for modifying mortgages under the Home Affordable modification program (HAMP)...

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Obama Administration doubles down on HAMP

Posted on November 30, 2009
The Administration has sent a clear signal that its primary foreclosure mitigation initiative, the Home Affordable modification program (HAMP), is not working. In a press release today, Treasury and HUD announced new efforts to convert three-month trial modifications to permanent...

Mortgage Broker/Lender Scripts/Training Materials Wanted

Posted on November 29, 2009
by Jeff Sovern For some research I'm doing, I would love to see training materials or scripts mortgage brokers and lenders use (or used when subprime borrowing was more common) for approaching borrowers. If anyone has them and cam make...

The Racial Impact of the Current Economic Depression

Posted on November 28, 2009
Unemployment rates among young African American males have hit Great Depression levels.

The White House Gatecrashers' Bankruptcies

Posted on November 28, 2009
By now, you probably know that Tariq and Michaela Salahi snuck in to the state dinner the other night at the White House. But I'd bet that you don't have all the details about their companies' bankruptcies and how those...

A $698,000 Mistake: A Real Story from the Mortgage Crisis

Posted on November 28, 2009
Yesterday's Washington Post includes this long article about a Maryland woman who bought a $700,000 house in the distant Washington, D.C. suburbs during the housing/credit boom only to be foreclosed just months after moving in. The foreclosure was hardly surprising...

Obama Administration To Launch Cash-for-Clunker Appliance Program

Posted on November 27, 2009
This morning's Washington Post reports in this article that the Obama Administration, building on its cash-for-clunkers car program, will soon unveil a cash-for-clunkers appliance program. The program will enable consumers to get rid of their old appliances for new, more...

U.S. PIRG Issues 24th Annual "Trouble in Toyland" Report

Posted on November 25, 2009
In advance of the holiday-season toy-buying orgy, U.S. PIRG has issued its 24th annual "Trouble in Toyland" Report, which warns parents of unsafe toys --- toys that pose choking hazards for young kids, that contain lead, phthalates, or other toxic...

Texas AG settles $4.5 million suit, including $100K to Center for Consumer Law

Posted on November 25, 2009
by Richard Alderman Conn's, a Beaumont based electronics retailer, has agreed to pay $4.5 million to a customer restitution fund to settle a state lawsuit against it involving deceptive trade practices. They will also pay $250,000 in attorney's fees and...

Alaska Supreme Court Rejects Debt Collectors' First Amendment Defense

Posted on November 24, 2009
by Deepak Gupta With increasing frequency, debt collectors accused of engaging in abusive tactics in the context of consumer collection litigation have been raising a novel defense based on the Petition Clause of the First Amendment, which guarantees a right...

"Problem" Home Mortgages Hit Record High

Posted on November 20, 2009
This story in today's Washington Post explains that a new bank industry survey shows that the percentage of home mortgages delinquent or in foreclosure is at a record high. Here's a couple paragraphs to give you a flavor: More than...

Florida opens the social Web to lawyers

Posted on November 17, 2009
by Greg Beck Under a settlement agreement filed yesterday, Florida lawyers are now free to use sites like Avvo and LinkedIn without fear of professional discipline. The settlement ends a lawsuit filed by Public Citizen earlier this year on behalf...

Number of tort trials decreases.

Posted on November 17, 2009
by Richard Alderman Tort reformers would have us believe that our judicial system is broken, clogged down with frivolous tort suits. In fact, a recent study shows that the number of state court tort suits that make it to trial...

Jenzabar ?expert witness? claims that Google still uses keyword meta tags

Posted on November 16, 2009
Proving that if you pay so-called expert witnesses enough money you can get them to say just about anything, Jenzabar has found a computer expert named Frank Farance who has submitted sworn testimony that Google really does take keyword meta...

Adam Levitin Paper on the Consumer Financial Protection Agency

Posted on September 30, 2009
Still more on the proposed CFPA (a theme of the last few days): Adam Levitin of Georgetown, and one of the signatories of our letter, has written The Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Here's the abstract: The Obama administration has proposed...

Dozens of Law Professors Join Letter Supporting Creation of the Consumer Protection Financial Agency

Posted on September 29, 2009
by Jeff Sovern 74 law professors teaching in areas related to consumer and banking law have joined in a letter supporting creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The professors, who teach at law schools in 28 states and the...

Did Google Yield Too Easily to a Baseless Court Order?

Posted on September 28, 2009
Once again, a judge in the Northern District of California has issued an overbroad temporary restraining order at the behest of a bank in a case over which federal jurisdiction was highly questionable. Last year, Judge Jeffrey White issued a...

Jeff Gelles of Philadelphia Inquirer Column on Why TILA Failed in the Subprime Crisis

Posted on September 27, 2009
Here. Disclosure: the column discusses my survey of mortgage broker which found that many borrowers spent too little time with the final TILA disclosures to understand them and that borrowers virtually never pull out of the loans upon receiving those...

interesting Financial Services Committee Press Releases

Posted on September 24, 2009
The House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Barney Frank, issued two particularly interesting press releases yesterday. The first, excerpted below, compares the work of the Democrats with the Fed in connection with consumer protection. It emphasizes how the Fed failed...

Representational plaintiff status lives!

Posted on September 23, 2009
Despite the best efforts of many defense firms, the DC consumer protection law retains its unique status of being the only true "private attorney general" law in the country. (California used to share this distinction, until a ballot initiative rewrote...

Ray Brescia on Improving Financial Sector Practices Through Voluntary Codes of Conduct

Posted on September 23, 2009
Ray Brescia of Albany has written Trust in the Shadows: Law, Behavior and Financial Re-Regulation, Buffalo Law Review. Here's the abstract: In the deep throes of the Great Depression, in an effort to restore faith in America?s economy, the Roosevelt....

Jennifer S. Martin on Depositary Account Overdraft Fees

Posted on September 22, 2009
Jennifer S. Martin of Oregon has written How Your $4 Coffee Can Cost You $39 or More if You Use Your Debit Card! Federal Level Consumer Protection and Modern Payments Transactions, University of Memphis Law Review. Here's the abstract: In...

Article on Some Relationships Between Payday Borrowing and Credit Card Borrowing

Posted on September 21, 2009
Sumit Agarwal of the Federal Reserve Bank, Paige Marta Skiba of Vanderbilt and Jeremy Tobacman of Penn have written Payday Loans and Credit Cards: New Liquidity and Credit Scoring Puzzles? Here's the abstract: Using a unique dataset matched at the...

Developments about Adaptive Marketing's suit to identify critical blogger

Posted on September 18, 2009
Yesterday I posted about a disturbing lawsuit seeking to identify an anonymous Internet blogger, Flaneur de Fraude, because she criticized Adaptive Marketing for what Flaneur and Reuters blogger Felix Salmon called a ?predatory bait and switch.? Two interesting factoids emerged...

Milberg Firm Files Class Action Against NAF

Posted on September 18, 2009
The claims include UDAP and FDCPA violations, as well as breach of contract. Milberg's statement is here while the complaint is here (hat tip to Ray Warner).

Gannett Shamed Into Changing Policy on Responding to Requests to Identify Blog Commenters

Posted on September 18, 2009
An interesting AP article has appeared about a controversy in Wisconsin -- after several nasty comments appeared on the website of a Wausau newspaper about a local public official, the official asked the paper who was writing the nasty comments,...

"How to Beat the Bank," a Mini-Documentary on Overdraft Fees

Posted on September 17, 2009
Filmmaker Karney Hatch, annoyed with overdraft charges on his bank statements, took Wells Fargo to small claims court and got the charges reversed. In an interview for Hatch's film, Ralph Nader speculates that if a million consumers did what Hatch...

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