Consumer Law

36% interest rate cap

Posted on January 26, 2008
Over at Consumer Rights Watch, Mark Ireland has stated two truths about Payday lending: 1. Payday lending is a business that simply keeps people in debt, rather than provide them with an emergency safety net, and 2. Only enforcement of a comprehensive interest rate cap at or around 36 percent for small loans will solve the debt [...

Build an economy, not buy one

Posted on January 26, 2008
Let’s use the $150 billion currently proposed for rebates and corporate welfare to instead fund an 18-month infrastructure and government-efficiency initiative. That is what Bob MacNeal says in today’s StarTribune. I couldn’t agree more...

New Minnesota consumer website: Consumer Rights Watch

Posted on January 25, 2008
Public interest lobbyist Ron Elwood and former Minnesota attorney general Mark Ireland recently started Consumer Rights Watch, a blog on consumer issues in Minnesota. Other than a glaring omission in the links section, it looks like a great blog. Check it out.

Served by a debt collector? What to do next

Posted on January 24, 2008
Getting served with a lawsuit is one of the more upsetting things that can happen to you. When the process server hands a summons and complaint to you or to someone “of suitable age and discretion” who answers your door, they are dragging you into the legal system...

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Helping the unbanked

Posted on January 24, 2008
Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger are heading up a great initiative to get people to open bank accounts rather than use check cashing centers etc. that charge what is often a hefty a fee to cash their paycheck. In a commentary in the WSJ, they point out that: the number of check cashers, payday lenders [...

What the Fed rate cut means

Posted on January 22, 2008
This morning, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors made an “emergency” rate cut today of .75% to the federal funds rate. (Federal Reserve press release.) The Fed, in addition to everyone else, seems to be worried about the state of the economy and the potential for recession...

Refund anticipation loans are a bad deal

Posted on January 19, 2008
The smell of tax returns is in the air, and so is the stink of shysters. Tax season means tax preparers and others are pushing high-cost refund anticipation loans. H&R Block, the popular low-cost tax preparation service, pushes refund anticipation loans on its “Fast Money Options” page...

Why brick-and-mortar stores are dying

Posted on January 15, 2008
Oh, there are a lot of complicated economic models to explain why consumers are turning to the internet in ever-increasing numbers to do their shopping, but it seems to me the reason may have more to do with practices like Best Buy’s insistence on collecting phone numbers just so they can send out a pile [...

Debt collectors in the US may not be so bad, after all

Posted on January 09, 2008
Not compared with debt collectors in India, anyway. Vinod Kumar was sitting in a friend’s car listening to the radio one evening last January when a stranger appeared, yanked him from the vehicle and beat him with an iron bar. To collect a debt, that is...

Finding lawyers outside Minnesota

Posted on January 06, 2008
Occasionally we receive e-mails from someone looking for representation outside of Minnesota. While we try to help everyone we can, we are not licensed in other states, and other states may have very different laws, procedural rules, and legal climates...

Presidential candidates on toy safety

Posted on January 05, 2008
[Consumer Law & Policy Blog crosspost] Carey Greenberg-Berger at the Consumerist followed up my digging into presidential candidates’ participation in consumer legislation with some more digging, and looked into the candidates’ rhetoric on toy safety, one of the “hot” consumer issues of 2007...

We take you to a meeting of the RIAA

Posted on January 04, 2008
From joyoftech.com:

Mortgage denials for Native Americans

Posted on January 02, 2008
In light of all the subprime lending mess, in which “No Doc loan” credit applications were often based on largely fictional income, and brokers and banks where playing all sorts of games to get people into high interest subprime loans, the Fargo Forum analysis of home loan applications for 2006 found that lenders denied one [...

Credit card payoff through debt management/credit counseling programs: be careful!

Posted on January 01, 2008
Our next-door neighbor in our office building, Tara McCarthy, was quoted in a Star Tribune article about a family who paid off $35,000 in credit card debt over four years and eight months. John and Cheryl Martin racked up their debt, but, as John said, “we really didn’t have much to show for all the [...

Presidential candidates? votes on 2007 consumer legislation (CL&P Blog crosspost)

Posted on January 01, 2008
Cross-posted to Consumer Law & Policy Blog: First, happy New Year and thanks to Deepak for inviting me to take part in the Consumer Law & Policy blog! I am a consumer rights attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I publish a blog of my own, Caveat Emptor...

Already at ludicrous speed, the RIAA goes a bit faster

Posted on December 31, 2007
Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing points out that the RIAA’s ludicrous stance on copying CDs for personal use is actually even more ludicrous in light of what they were saying just months ago: The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it’s been on their Website for some time now, that it’s perfectly [...

RIAA has achieved ludicrous speed

Posted on December 29, 2007
In its efforts to bring about the overthrow of copyright protection by adopting arguments more ridiculous than the Bush Administration’s attempts to exclude Dick Cheney from the executive branch, the RIAA is now arguing that it is illegal for you to transfer music from a CD you purchase to your computer for your own, personal [...

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