Consumer Law & Policy Blog

Collecting debts on cars in the computerized world

Read this article by Michael Corkery and Jessica Sliver-Greenberg. Here's an excerpt:

The thermometer showed a 103.5-degree fever, and her 10-year-old’s asthma was flaring up. Mary Bolender, who lives in Las Vegas, needed to get her daughter to an emergency room, but her 2005 Chrysler van would not start. The cause was not a mechanical problem — it was her lender. Ms. Bolender was three days behind on her monthly car payment. Her lender, C.A.G. Acceptance of Mesa, Ariz., remotely activated a device in her car’s dashboard that prevented her car from starting. Before she could get back on the road, she had to pay more than $389, money she did not have that morning in March.

ContractsProf Blog Symposium on Ben-Shahar & Schneider's Book on Disclosure

by Jeff Sovern

Here.  The symposium, on Ben-Shahar's and Schneider's More Than You Wanted to Know: The Failure of Mandated Disclosure, has been running since last week and features contributions by names that will be familiar to regular readers of consumer law literature, including Lauren Willis of Loyola-LA, David Vladeck of Georgetown, Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of NYU, Nancy Kim of Cal Western, Ryan Calo of Washington, Robert Hillman of Cornell, and others.  I also submitted a post.

Jon Stewart schools the House Science subcommittee on climate change

Both funny and depressing. Either way, worth a watch (about 10 minutes) to learn about our elected leaders' relationship to science.

Media coalition to CFPB: make all consumer complaints public

The Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press and eight news organizations submitted comments to that effect to the CFPB. The comments specifically ask the agency to abandon a proposal to disclose complaints only when the author "opts in" to having the complaints shared.

"The relationship between consumers and financial institutions remains a topic of utmost public concern in the United States and around the world. The experiences reflected in the narrative portion of consumer complaints submitted to the CFBP will contribute to the public’s understanding of that relationship, and inform the ongoing democratic debate regarding financial regulations." - See more at: http://www.rcfp.org/all-consumer-complaint-narratives-should-be-public-reporters-committee-media-coalition-tell-cfpb#sthash.UDDcR3d9.dpuf

"The relationship between consumers and financial institutions remains a topic of utmost public concern in the United States and around the world. The experiences reflected in the narrative portion of consumer complaints submitted to the CFBP will contribute to the public’s understanding of that relationship, and inform the ongoing democratic debate regarding financial regulations." - See more at: http://www.rcfp.org/all-consumer-complaint-narratives-should-be-public-reporters-committee-media-coalition-tell-cfpb#sthash.UDDcR3d9.dpuf

You can read the coalition's press release describing the comments here. (HT: Paul Levy.)

On "public representatives" in government agencies

This article in the Federal Times from Ruth Y. Goldway, Chair of the Postal Regulatory Commission, argues that her agency's program of having a designated public representative explicitly representing the public interest in the agency decisionmaking process improves outcomes. As Goldway explains:

[T]he public representatives identify and discuss issues that would not otherwise be fully addressed on the record. . . . Since the establishment of the program, nearly every commission decision references comments from the public representative, and those comments have often made a substantive contribution to the record.

 

On raising the minimum wage

The Washington Post offers this encouraging story from the Pacific Northwest, where a Seattle suburb's decision to raise the minimum wage has not caused the disruption that opponents predicted.

And NPR's Planet Money has this story about a shopping mall on the boundary between two California cities with different wage laws; businesses and workers have had to adjust to a different minimum wage for different stores within the same mall.

FTC Settles With Two Online Companies That Improperly Collected Kids' Information

In more FTC news, the agency announced yesterday that online review site Yelp, Inc., and mobile app developer TinyCo, Inc., agreed to settle separate FTC charges "that they improperly collected children’s information in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, Rule." Under the settlements, Yelp will pay a $450,000 civil penalty, and TinyCo will pay a $300,000 civil penalty.

The FTC alleged that Yelp collected the names, email addresses, and locations of minors who downloaded apps, without notifying parents and obtaining their consent. The FTC alleged that many TonyCo. apps are targeted to children, and that TinyCo. collected email addresses when users downloaded the apps.

In addition to the monetary penalties, both settlements require the company to delete the information collected from minors under age 13.

FTC Halts Payday Loan Scheme

From the FTC's press release:

At the Federal Trade Commission’s request, a U.S. district court in Missouri has temporarily halted an online payday lending scheme that allegedly bilked consumers out of tens of millions of dollars by trapping them into loans they never authorized and then using the supposed “loans” as a pretext to take money from their bank accounts.

The court imposed a temporary restraining order that appoints a receiver to take over the operation. The court order gives the FTC and the receiver immediate access to the companies’ premises and documents, and freezes their assets.

The FTC alleges that the defendants violated the FTC Act, the Truth in Lending Act, and the Electronic Funds Transfer Act, and it is asking the court for a permanent injunction stop the defendants’ practices.

CFPB Proposes Regulation of Non-bank Auto Finance Companies

The CFPB announced yesterday that it is proposing to oversee larger non-bank auto finance companies, which would be a first at the federal level. At the same time, the CFPB released a report detailing auto-lending discrimination at banks. "The report highlights that the Bureau’s supervisory actions against banks will result in about $56 million in redress for up to 190,000 consumers harmed by discriminatory practices." Read the full CFPB press release.

(BREAKING) Non-disparagement clause ban introduced in Congress

Following in the footsteps of California's new law barring the use of non-disparagement clauses and providing a private cause of action for seeking or threatening to enforce one, today Reps. Eric Swalwell and Brad Sherman (both of California) introduced in Congress the "Consumer Review Freedom Act" that would render non-disparagement clauses unenforceable nationwide.

The text is available here.

Although the bill does not provide as robust remedies as California's law (which, unlike the new federal bill, provides a private cause of action for consumers and prohibits seeking or threatening to enforce a non-disparagement clause or retaliating against consumers for their speech), the bill does provide for enforcement by the FTC and by state authorities, and it prohibits even "offer[ing]" a contract containing such a non-disparagement clause.

Good to see Congress proposing a national solution to a problem that transcends the boundaries of any particular state. Let's hope the bill attracts the necessary support. One might particularly expect Utah's congressional delegation to take an interest in light of the KlearGear case, and the principle that consumers should be free to speak their minds ought be one that has broad appeal.