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    Public Citizen Litigation Group
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    St. John's University School of Law
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    Georgetown University Law Center and Harvard Law School

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    University of Houston Law Center
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    Public Justice
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    US Public Interest Research Group
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    Public Citizen Litigation Group
  • Scott Nelson
    Public Citizen Litigation Group
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    National Association of Consumer Advocates
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    National Consumer Law Center

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The contributors to the Consumer Law & Policy blog are lawyers and law professors who practice, teach, or write about consumer law and policy. The blog is hosted by Public Citizen Litigation Group, but the views expressed here are solely those of the individual contributors (and don't necessarily reflect the views of institutions with which they are affiliated). To view the blog's policies, please click here.

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« May 2022 | Main

Sunday, June 26, 2022

CFPB Spring Regulatory Agenda is up and arbitration isn't on it

by Jeff Sovern

As the American Banker's Kate Berry reported (behind a paywall but available on Lexis), the CFPB's Spring Regulatory Agenda has been posted to the OMB's web site, rather than, as has been the Bureau's practice, the CFPB web site. Here it is:

Agency Agenda Stage of Rulemaking Title RIN
CFPB Prerule Stage Consumer Access to Financial Records 3170-AA78
CFPB Proposed Rule Stage Amendments to FIRREA Concerning Automated Valuation Models 3170-AA57
CFPB Proposed Rule Stage Property Assessed Clean Energy Financing 3170-AA84
CFPB Final Rule Stage Small Business Lending Data Collection Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act 3170-AA09
CFPB Final Rule Stage Adverse Information in Cases of Human Trafficking Under the Debt Bondage Repair Act 3170-AB12

Nothing on arbitration or payday lending. While the regs on the list are all important, so far it looks as if Director Rohit Chopra will make much of his mark in ways other than by promulgating regulations. That means many of his initiatives may not last much longer than his service as director.

Posted by Jeff Sovern on Sunday, June 26, 2022 at 05:13 PM in Arbitration, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Credit Reporting & Discrimination, Privacy | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, June 25, 2022

CFP: CFPB consumer finance research conference

The submission deadline is August 22 and the conference is December 15-16. More here.

Posted by Jeff Sovern on Saturday, June 25, 2022 at 12:33 PM in Conferences, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday, June 24, 2022

My Daughter’s @Delta Disaster Story: The Last Chapter (I hope)

by Jeff Sovern

When last we left our intrepid adventurer’s story, she had arrived home, even if her bag had not. But one week after her original flight to Atlanta, she received a text from Delta indicating that her bag was about to be delivered—to the hotel she had left four days before. While she was trying to reach Delta, the bag was left in the hotel lobby without anyone speaking to the hotel staff to explain why it had been brought there. You would think an airline would understand that when someone flies somewhere and stays in a hotel, they may not still be there a week later. Indeed, Delta should have known she was no longer at the hotel because they had flown her to Detroit, and eventually back to New York. To make matters worse, my daughter had replaced most of the items in the bag during its week-long absence and so now was facing the possibility of having bought many of the same items twice and not receiving full compensation from Delta, which had, after all, returned the bag, albeit to a place where my daughter no longer was.

Fortunately, my daughter’s friend was driving from Atlanta to New York and brought the bag to her yesterday, two weeks after the original flight. My daughter eagerly opened the suitcase to discover that her shoes and underwear were missing. The missing underwear is creepy. But not to worry: someone else’s clothing and shoes had mysteriously replaced them and were sandwiched in with my daughter’s remaining clothing!

Sadly, this chapter ends with another Delta cliffhanger. My son was scheduled to fly back from Detroit this afternoon on Delta. Naturally he learned this morning that his flight had been cancelled. Delta found him a later flight, which has in turn been delayed. The good news: he won’t check a bag.

Posted by Jeff Sovern on Friday, June 24, 2022 at 06:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Mystery company fails to identify Twitter critic who used “its” photos

by Paul Alan Levy

Judge Vincent Chabbria ruled that an anonymous Twitter user using the pseudonym “Mr. Money Bags” could not be identified pursuant to a DMCA subpoena, both because her display of copyrighted photographs to taunt a venture capitalist for allegedly spending money on the company of nubile young women was fair use, and because, in any event, applying the well-known Dendrite standard,the Twitter user’s First Amendment right to speak anonymously outweighs the mysterious copyright owner’s possible interest in pursuing judicial remedies for the alleged infringement.  His  opinion joins several other recent decisions refusing to recognize a broad "copyright exception" to the Dendrite standard.

Judge Chhabria Agrees That Standard Dendrite Analysis Applies

The case had aroused substantial interest, and amicus involvement from Public Citizen as well as from EFF and ACLU of Northern California, because Bayside Advisory, the owner of the copyright in the photographs, argued, with avid amicus support from copyright owners’ trade associations, that the First Amendment right to speak anonymously could not be invoked to oppose a DMCA subpoena, or, at the very most, that a highly permissive standard (the “Sony Music” standard)  for identifying alleged infringers in cases involving the misuse of peer-to-peer software to obtain and disseminate copyrighted musical recordings and movies was the right one for assessing DMCA subpoena cases.

Judge Chhabria cursorily rejected these contentions, holding simply that Dendrite is the governing standard without even mentioning Sony Music as an alternate approach. He elaborated only that, to the extent that Bayside was arguing that the text of the DMCA precluded any invocation of the First Amendment as limiting enforcement of a subpoena sought in furtherance of an alleged copyright claim, that raised serious First Amendment concerns that militated against such a construction of the statute. He also squarely rejected Bayside’s argument that a platform hosting allegedly infringing content lacks either standing or statutory power to assert the First Amendment or fair use rights of its users.

Continue reading "Mystery company fails to identify Twitter critic who used “its” photos" »

Posted by Paul Levy on Wednesday, June 22, 2022 at 04:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Senators ask FTC to protect communities of color from discriminatory online practices

Seven Democratic and Democratic-caucusing senators sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday calling on it to use its authority to protect communities of color and immigrant communities in the United States from discriminatory online practices, biometric surveillance, consumer predation, and anti-competitive behavior. The letter focuses on the impact of facial recognition and location data collection technologies.

The letter is here.

Posted by Allison Zieve on Wednesday, June 22, 2022 at 02:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NCLC releases 50-state survey on predatory lending laws

From NCLC's press release:

"A new report from the National Consumer Law Center finds progress toward a 36% APR cap for common short-term and longer-term loans in some states. In states that allow high-cost loans, exorbitant interest rates can trap borrowers in a cycle of debt. Two states – New Mexico and North Dakota – enacted new laws that dramatically reduce the APRs and fees allowed for a $500 six-month and $2,000 two-year installment loan. On the other hand, several states went in the opposite direction, allowing predatory loans to carry even higher APRs."

The report, titled, Predatory Installment in the States, includes maps and tables for annual percentage rate caps in every state and the District of Columbia, tracks installment loan changes in the states since mid-2021, and provides recommendations for states to protect residents from predatory high-cost lending. 

Posted by Allison Zieve on Wednesday, June 22, 2022 at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Osofsky & Thomas paper on the relationship between implicit bias and the home mortgage interest deduction

Leigh Osofsky and Kathleen DeLaney Thomas, both of North Carolina, have written Implicit Legislative Bias: The Case of the Mortgage Interest Deduction, 56 UC Davis Law Review (2022). Here is the abstract:

The home mortgage interest deduction is over 100 years old. The deduction has been subject to increasing and, at times, withering criticism from commentators. Scholars have argued that the mortgage interest deduction may be a particularly ineffective and regressive way to subsidize homeownership. Other scholars have made the important point that the mortgage interest deduction has a disparate racial impact: homeowners are disproportionately white, so the deduction disproportionately benefits white people at the expense of people of color. Yet, the mortgage interest deduction has retained remarkable and costly staying power despite all the critiques.

How has the mortgage interest deduction persisted over a century, despite extensive critique? We argue that an underappreciated part of the story of the mortgage interest deduction is how its very creation arose out of implicit racial bias and other cognitive biases. First, scholars and policymakers ignored the racialized history of homeownership in the United States and relied on racist tropes in studying the potential economic benefits of the deduction. After such associations occurred, policymakers misattributed to homeownership benefits that were really, at least in part, benefits that flowed from whiteness. Perceiving positive benefits from homeownership, legislators viewed it as a good worth subsidizing through the tax system. Cognitive biases such as confirmation bias then made it unlikely that, once in place, the mortgage interest deduction would be substantially changed.

This understanding of the mortgage interest deduction should upset any future attempts to characterize the deduction as a neutral, albeit flawed, way to subsidize desirable values. More generally, this case study illustrates a phenomenon that merits more attention in the legal literature: how implicit racial bias and other cognitive biases in the legislative process make flawed legislation, like the mortgage interest deduction, more likely to be made and more difficult to upend. We conclude by offering suggestions for minimizing bias in future legislation and for reforming existing legal policy that already reflects such bias.

Posted by Jeff Sovern on Tuesday, June 21, 2022 at 05:15 PM in Consumer Law Scholarship, Credit Reporting & Discrimination | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday, June 16, 2022

CFPB requests information regarding relationship banking and customer service

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is seeking public input on how bank customers can assert their rights to better customer service with big banks. A 2010 federal law specifies that consumers have rights to obtain timely responses to requests for information about their accounts from large depository institutions. In a Request for Information issued this week, the CFPB seeks data about, and consumer experiences with, the obstacles that may prevent people from receiving high standards of customer service and high-quality human interactions with their banks or credit unions. More information is here.

Posted by Allison Zieve on Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

My Daughter’s @Delta Disaster Part 2

by Jeff Sovern

When last we left my daughter, she was in Atlanta, bagless, and Delta was clueless about where it was. On Sunday, she returned to the Atlanta airport for her return flight. Fortunately, checking in went faster than for her departure flight because she didn’t have a bag to check! She cleared security, only to learn that her flight home to LaGuardia had been cancelled. She desperately sought an alternate flight. Finally, a Delta employee found her a flight to Detroit. From there, she could get on a plane to the White Plains airport, and from there she could take a Lyft home, arriving home at 2 a.m., about five hours later than her originally-planned return. 

By the time her flight arrived in Detroit, she had only minutes to make it to the connecting flight. She ran to the gate, only to discover that the flight was overbooked by some twenty people. Delta offered people compensation to surrender their seats and postpone their flight until the next day, and finally my daughter got a seat. Of course, the fight was delayed by computer glitches. Meanwhile, the flight was still overbooked and so Delta kept raising its offer. Finally, my daughter decided that arriving the next day with compensation beat arriving home in the middle of the night. She took the offer, only to be stuck in the airport until 2 a.m. anyway while Delta attended to the logistics of booking her hotel room and flight back. She spent the rest of the night at an oddly-smelling airport motel, got on a flight the next afternoon (which was, naturally, overbooked and delayed by an hour), and arrived back at her home the following evening.  

Her bag remains lost, and she still hasn’t received the promised compensation, despite spending nearly an hour on the phone yesterday trying unsuccessfully to get it. Maybe they put it in her suitcase. But at least she no longer has to fly Delta. Until, of course the next time she flies a route that only Delta serves. Ah, the benefits of an oligopoly.  

Posted by Jeff Sovern on Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, June 11, 2022

My daughter's Delta Airlines disaster: what happened to her suitcase? @Delta

by Jeff Sovern

Thursday night, my daughter waved goodbye to her suitcase at LaGuardia as she flew to Atlanta for a wedding. She arrived in Atlanta at 10:30 pm, but her bag was a no show. She optimistically, but as it happened, pointlessly, stayed at the airport until 1:00 am at the advice of Delta employees, searching for the bag. The following morning she called Delta, spent almost an hour on hold, and was finally told the bag had been scanned into the airport on Friday! She raced to the airport, but in fact the person on the phone had misled her and the bag was not there. Now she faced her own private Mission Impossible: the wedding was only three hours away and Delta had wasted still more of the time she could have used to replace her wedding attire. She zoomed to a mall and made it to the wedding, but sadly missed the vows. Meanwhile, her bag is still missing, as of Saturday morning.

Even children of consumer law professors have consumer law problems. Even if they no longer have a suitcase.

Posted by Jeff Sovern on Saturday, June 11, 2022 at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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Recent Posts

  • CFPB Spring Regulatory Agenda is up and arbitration isn't on it
  • CFP: CFPB consumer finance research conference
  • My Daughter’s @Delta Disaster Story: The Last Chapter (I hope)
  • Mystery company fails to identify Twitter critic who used “its” photos
  • Senators ask FTC to protect communities of color from discriminatory online practices
  • NCLC releases 50-state survey on predatory lending laws
  • Osofsky & Thomas paper on the relationship between implicit bias and the home mortgage interest deduction
  • CFPB requests information regarding relationship banking and customer service
  • My Daughter’s @Delta Disaster Part 2
  • My daughter's Delta Airlines disaster: what happened to her suitcase? @Delta
  • Stories about people struggling with student loans
  • Another Unanimous Supreme Court Decision Goes Against a Company Seeking Arbitration
  • NACA Webinar: How to become a federal judge for consumer attorneys
  • New report on scam robocalls
  • Paper on algorithmic price discrimination and consumer protection
  • Former employee of short-term lender explains how it snared consumers in debt traps
  • Who wrote the Utah Va, Colo, privacy laws? The Markup says it was industry lobbyists
  • Hunt paper: The Failed Legal Case Against Student Debt Jubilee
  • CFPB Wins A Round Against CashCall
  • Report: "Vets, Servicemembers Harmed by TAB Bank and EasyPay Finance’s Predatory Loans"
  • FTC Calls for Research Presentations for PrivacyCon 2022
  • Arbitration win for consumer plaintiff in the Supreme Court
  • American Banker: "CFPB's latest existential threat: Legal challenges to its funding "
  • Consumer Federation of America is looking for a Communications Director
  • FTC: Not enough baby formula means plenty of scammers
  • Some comments on Alan Kaplinsky's comments on my comments
  • Attend a panel discussion on the FTC's monetary authority in the wake of the Supreme Court's AMG decision
  • Nielson Paper Asks What Happens If the FTC Becomes a Serious Rulemaker?
  • CFP: Symposium on AI, Consumer Credit, and Discrimination
  • CFP for Hybrid International Consumer Protection Law Conference
  • Virtual Conference: Multilevel Marketing: The Consumer Protection Challenge 2022
  • Watch Tower Drops Its Effort to Identify a Dissident Blogger Based on Spurious Copyright Claims

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