Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

Got Bounded Rationality And Political Gridlock? There's A Loan Disclosure Hack For That, Debra Pogrund Stark, Jessica M. Choplin, Andrew Pizor

Cleveland State Law Review

For decades, Congress has primarily relied upon the use of mandatory disclosure forms to protect consumers from entering into ill-advised loans by disclosing the terms of an offered loan before the borrower enters into it. This policy is not likely to change any time soon due to congressional gridlock. Frustratingly, despite improvements, consumers still have difficulties using these forms to obtain the key information and data they need to make wise decisions. These disclosures contain a great deal of information, and assume that consumers are capable of reading, understanding, and using all of it. Contrary to this assumption, research on …

Consumer Bitcredit And Fintech Lending, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

The digital economy is changing everything, including how we borrow money. In the wake of the 2008 crisis, banks pulled back in their lending and, as a result, many consumers and small businesses found themselves unable to access credit. A wave of online firms called fintech lenders have filled the space left vacant by traditional financial institutions. These platforms are fast making antiques out of many mainstream lending practices, such as long paper applications and face-to-face meetings. Instead, through underwriting by automation — utilizing big data (including social media data) and machine learning — loan processing that once took days …

Consumer Bitcredit And Fintech Lending, Christopher K. Odinet

Christopher K. Odinet

Mers Remains Afloat In A Sea Of Foreclosures, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Despite the simple premise of the MERS System, opponents--or those simply trying to invalidate or forestall enforcement of their mortgages--have leveled various challenges to MERS's practices and even its basic business model. Taking an aerial view of the challenges, it is possible to discern a certain pattern as one challenge seemed to morph into the next (often following rejection of the earlier one in the courts). Some borrowers have asserted that MERS lacked legal standing to foreclose because it was a mere nominee and not the owner of the note. Even if MERS's legal standing was upheld, borrowers pointed to …

Behaviorally Informed Regulation, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir

Book Chapters

Policy makers typically approach human behavior from the perspective of the rational agent model, which relics on normativc, a priori analyses. The model assumes people make insightful, well-planned, highly controlled, and calculated decisions guided by considerations of personal utility. This perspective is promoted in the social sciences and in professional schools and has come to dominate much of the formulation and conduct of policy. An alternative view, developed mostly through empirical behavioral research, and the one we will articulate here, provides a substantially difierent perspective on individual behavior and its policy and regulatory implications. According to the empirical perspective, behavior …

Notice Is Not Enough: Why Tila Requires More Than A Letter Of Intent, Levi Smith

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat

The federal Truth in Lending Act (TILA) provides borrowers with protections and remedies against certain actions by lenders. TILA allows, in some circumstances, a borrower to rescind a loan from a lender within a three-year period from when the loan is made. However, a circuit split has developed regarding how the right to rescind must be exercised. Of the circuits that have considered this question, some require a lawsuit to be filed within the three-year period to rescind the loan. Other circuits have held that providing notice of the intent to rescind the loan within the three-year period is sufficient …

Ability To Pay, John A. E. Pottow

Articles

The landmark Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 ("Dodd-Frank") transforms the regulation of consumer credit in the United States. Many of its changes have been high-profile, attracting considerable media and scholarly attention, most notably the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"). Even specific consumer reforms, such as a so-called "plain vanilla" proposal, drew hot debate and lobbying firepower. But when the dust settled, one profoundly transformative innovation that did not garner the same outrage as plain vanilla or the CFPB did get into the law: imposing upon lenders a duty to assure a borrower's ability to repay. Ensuring a borrower's …

The Case For Behaviorally Informed Regulation, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir

Book Chapters

Policymakers approach human behavior largely through the perspective of the “rational agent” model, which relies on normative, a priori analyses of the making of rational decisions. This perspective is promoted in the social sciences and in professional schools, and has come to dominate much of the formulation and conduct of policy. An alternative view, developed mostly through empirical behavioral research, provides a substantially different perspective on individual behavior and its policy implications. Behavior, according to the empirical perspective, is the outcome of perceptions, impulses, and other processes that characterize the impressive machinery that we carry behind the eyes and between …

An Opt-Out Home Mortgage System, Michael S. Barr, Sendhil Mullainathan, Eldar Shafir

Other Publications

The current housing and financial crisis has led to significant congressional and executive action to manage the crisis and stem the harms from it, but the fundamental problems that caused the crisis remain largely unaddressed. The central features of the industrial organization of the mortgage market with its misaligned incentives, and the core psychological and behavioral phenomena that drive household financial decisionmaking remain. While the causes of the mortgage meltdown are myriad and the solutions likely to be multifaceted, a central problem that led to the crisis was that brokers and lenders offered loans that looked much less expensive and …

Nsf Fees, James J. White

Articles

Overdraft fees now make up more than half of banks' earnings on consumer checking accounts. In the past century, overdrafts have gone from the banker's scourge to the banker's profit center as bankers have learned that there is much to be made on these short term loans at breathtaking interest rates. I note that the federal agencies have been complicit in the growth of this form of lending. I propose that the banks and the agencies recognize the reality and attempt to mitigate these rates by encouraging the development of a competitive market.

The Usury Trompe L'Oeil, James J. White

Articles

This Article demonstrates how the interaction of a federal statute passed in 1864,1 a case decided by the Supreme Court in 1978,2 and modem technology has legally debarred every state legislature from controlling consumer interest rates in its state-but not from passing laws that appear to do so-and has politically debarred the Congress from setting federal rates to replace the state rates. As a consequence, the elaborate usury laws on the books of most states are only a trompe l'oeil, a "visual deception... rendered in extremely fine detail ... ." The presence of these finely detailed laws gives the illusion …

Consumer Law--The Supervised Loan In West Virginia, Jon David Levy

West Virginia Law Review

The supervised (small) loan is just one piece in the patchwork of transactions characterized as consumer credit. It is designed to increase the availability of credit for consumers in a form attractive to legitimate lenders who are permitted to issue loans with a low ceiling on the maximum principal amount, and a high ceiling on the permissible rate of interest. The other primary feature of the supervised loan, in trade off to its exemption from general usury requirements, is comprehensive regulation. As a result, supervised loan legislation is uniformly characterized by scrupulous licensing and oversight requirements. The one source perhaps …

Consumer Sensitivity To Interest Rates: An Empirical Study Of New Car Buyers And Auto Loans, James J. White, Frank W. Munger Jr.

Articles

ALTHOUGH it has never been clear whether the consumer needs to be protected from his own folly or from the rapaciousness of those who feed on him, consumer protection is a topic of intense current interest in the courts, in the legislatures, and in the law schools. A number of recent court decisions have attempted to attack problems confronting the consumer; unfortunately, these judicial efforts have succeeded primarily in disclosing the limitations in the courts' ability to deal with such problems. State and federal legislative bodies have pursued more carefully designed remedies. Congress has passed the Truth-in-Lending Act; the National …

Consumer Credit In The Ghetto: Ucc Free Entry Provisions And The Federal Trade Commission Study (Business In The Ghetto), James J. White

Other Publications

Like the former speakers, I will not speak on the topic for which I was scheduled. Instead I am going to talk about two things which are not closely related to one another but which are both related to the profitability of the retail sale of goods and credit in the ghetto. I propose to leave the law on consumer credit to Mr. Dostert and Professor Hogan. First I wish to say a word on the so-called "free entry" aspects of the Uniform Consumer Credit Code; then I will comment on the Federal Trade Commission study.