Consumer Law & Policy Blog

Coronavirus puts credit ratings at risk

U.S. Public Interest Research Group's Ed Mierzwinski  and Sabrina Clevenger write that the effects of coronavirus "will send credit reports in a downward spiral" and explain how Congress can help. Their op-ed in USA Today is here.

Massachusetts regulation prohibits creditors from debt collection that requires people to leave their homes

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on Friday announced that her office has filed an emergency regulation that prohibits creditors from engaging in methods of debt collection that can require people to leave their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Healey said the regulation, 940 CMR 35.00, is designed to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive debt collection practices during the outbreak of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. It is effective immediately and will remain in effect for 90 days or until the state of emergency declared by the governor is over.

In addition to prohibiting the filing new lawsuits against Massachusetts consumers, visiting their homes or places of work, or repossessing their cars, the regulation prohibits debt collection agencies and debt buyers from making unsolicited debt collection telephone calls to consumers.

Conservative/industry CFPB Taskforce on consumer laws issues request for information

by Jeff Sovern

Earlier this year, the CFPB created a Taskforce to make "recommendations for ways to improve and strengthen consumer financial laws and regulations." The Taskforce is chaired  by George Mason professor Todd Zwyicki and its other members are J. Howard Beales III, Thomas A. Durkin, William C. MacLeod, and Jean Noonan.  As far as I can tell, all the Taskforce members are white Washington, D.C. area folks. They have tended in the past to take conservative positions on consumer law, or represented the industry, or both. I certainly do not mean to suggest that the members of the Taskforce are not qualified to serve on it, nor am I suggesting that any member of the Taskforce will not act in good faith. But a Taskforce that included consumer advocates and more diversity would be more likely to offer a balanced approach to consumer protection and elicit support for its proposals from both sides of the aisle. [Disclosure: I applied to serve on the Taskforce but my application was denied.] 

Another point about the Taskforce: it is to give its final report no later than January of 2021. In other words, if a Democrat wins the presidency this fall, is inaugurated January 20, 2021, immediately fires Director Kraninger (a power the president might or might not have after  SCOTUS decides Seila Law), and names an acting director, the likelihood is that the Taskforce's report would already have been submitted.  

The CFPB's website explains that "The taskforce is in part inspired by an earlier commission established by the Consumer Credit Protection Act (Act) in 1968." But that commission seems very different from the Taskforce in several respects. For one thing, the Commission did not issue its final report until 1972, three years after it was fully constituted. For another, its membership included notable consumer advocates, such as Senator William Proxmire and Representative Leonor K. Sullivan, though it also included industry representatives, such as Ira Millstein and conservatives like Senator John Tower. In other words, the Commission included more ideological diversity and took more time to consider its report. In addition, the Commission was created by an act of Congress, rather than an agency director who has frequently declined to comment on statutes during her testimony before Congress, stating instead that her job is to implement them.

In any event, the Taskforce has now issued a request for information, and you can read it here. It will be interesting to see both what responses it elicits and how the Taskforce treats them.

Consumer protections announced in response to COVID-19

The National Consumer Law Center has posted a compilation of "major consumer protections announced in response to COVID-19," including suspensions on foreclosures, evictions, terminations on telecommunications and utility service, elimination of interest, and forbearance on student loan payments. The webpage is here.

States urge online retailers to crack down on coronavirus price gouging

A bipartisan group of state attorneys general on Wednesday sent letters to major online retailers urging them crack down on price gouging on their online platforms amid the spread of coronavirus. The 34 attorneys general asked Amazon, Craigslist, eBay, Facebook and Walmart build tools to detect price spikes and create landing pages for people to report cases of price gouging. The letter cited several examples of price gouging related to coronavirus, including prices of hand sanitizer and face masks.

The Hill has the story, here.

CFPB: Protecting your finances during the Coronavirus Pandemic

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has posted Protecting your finances during the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Can ProctorU Be Trusted With Students' Personal Data?

One of the hard lessons that I have learned over my years of practice is that, although some lawyers believe that they can increase the in terrorem effect of a complaint or a demand letter by piling on claims, the net effect of adding silly assertions can be to make things worse for your own client and not better.  That may be true as well of the demand letter recently sent by David Vance Lucas of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings on behalf of their client, ProctorU.

Criticisms and Demand Letter

The saga begins with a faculty association at the University of California at Santa Barbara, which heard about a potential problem with the data-sharing policies of ProctorU, a business that provides internet-based test monitoring services. The group took a look at the ProctorU privacy policies and did not like what they saw – in their view, it provided too little specificity about the limitations on data-sharing, and no protection for the data in the event that ProctorU were to go into bankruptcy or merge, possibly without restrictions on use of the data. And online discussions by students subject to ProctorU monitoring have shared a variety of concerns about the creepy nature of ProctorU’s interventions; the students were plainly worried about the attending possibility of data accumulation. The faculty association voiced its concerns in a letter to the leadership of the University of California at Santa Barbara, urging them to stop using ProctorU and to avoid using “any other private service that either sells or makes students’ data available to third parties.” The letter was discussed in a story in the school’s student newspaper.

Bloomberg: Bill would require credit bureaus to stop listing negative items during pandemic

by Jeff Sovern

Evan Weinberger reports here. The bill's text is not yet available at Govtrack. I wonder if the bill would also apply to consumers who have not lost their jobs or had hours cut back because of the pandemic, and if so, what incentives it would create for them. 

AFT and SBPC Student Loan Repayment Webinar

The Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are co-hosting a webinar focusing on student loan repayment during the coronavirus pandemic. More information and registration here.

Norm Silber: Consumers should use their gift cards in light of the coronavirus

Hofstra's Norm Silber, who studied gift cards and other merchant cash substitutes for his article, Merchant Authorized Consumer Cash Substitutes, 14 University of Virginia Law & Business Review (2019), urges consumers to spend their gift cards online. He points out that

[A] gift card always involves insolvency risks, but the problem has never been as serious as it is now-- in the case of the coronavirus pandemic.  When consumers buy gift cards, they are usually making unsecured loans at zero interest to retailers. 

In 2015, they loaded $5 billion on to Starbucks cards, for example, a number has grown since then. The average consumer last year had outstanding loans to retailers that have been estimated at about $214.   A list of the popular gift cards includes many that are in little or no apparent danger; but there are many that may well be, especially if the imperatives of social distancing continue into the summer and fall—which appears extremely likely, sitting here now. 

Here is a list published not long ago in a WalletHub report:

Target; Walmart; Sephora; eBay; Home Depot; Ikea; iTunes; Starbucks; Costco; Chick-Fil-A; Netflix McDonald's; Fandango; Chipotle; Rei; Old Navy; H&M; Disney; Google Play; Best Buy; Macy’s; Lowe’s; Subway; Amazon; Gamestop; Nordstrom; Nike; Kohl's; T.J. Maxx; Apple Store; Cabelas; Visa; Ticketmaster; Whole Foods; Forever 21; Applebees; Olive Garden; Taco Bell; American Airlines; JCPenney; Texas Roadhouse; Red Lobster; Cinemark; Michaels; American Express; Mastercard; Dunkin Donuts; Hobby Lobby; Etsy; Shell

My suggestion is for consumers to spend their gift cards online—and as soon as possible in the case of companies whose profitability depends on social intimacy.  Doing so will also help the retailers.