Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

The New Wild West: Exploring Western New York’S Underground, Fraudulent Debt Collection Industry, Nathan Woodard

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gender, Race & The Inadequate Regulation Of Cosmetics, Marie C. Boyd

Faculty Publications

Scholars and other commentators have identified failures in the regulation of cosmetics-which depends heavily on voluntary industry self- regulation-and called for more stringent regulation of these products. Yet these calls have largely neglected an important dimension of the problem: the current laissez-faire approach to the regulation of cosmetics disproportionally places women, and particularly women who are members of other excluded groups, at risk. This Article examines federal cosmetics law and regulation through a feminist lens. It argues that cosmetics law and regulation have lagged behind that of the other major product categories regulated by the Food and Drug Administration under …

Midland Funding V. Johnson And The Pernicious Problem Of Stale-Debt Claims, Kara J. Bruce

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Alexa, Who Owns My Pillow Talk? Contracting, Collaterizing, And Monetizing Consumer Privacy Through Voice-Captured Personal Data, Anne Logsdon Smith

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

With over one-fourth of households in the U.S. alone now using voice-activated digital assistant devices such as Amazon’s Echo (better known as “Alexa”) and Google’s Home, companies are recording and transmitting record volumes of voice data from the privacy of people’s homes to servers across the globe. These devices capture conversations about everything from online shopping to food preferences to entertainment recommendations to bedtime stories, and even phone and appliance use. With “Big Data” and business analytics expected to be a $203 billion-plus industry by 2020, companies are racing to acquire and leverage consumer data by selling it, licensing it, …

Adminization: Gatekeeping Consumer Contracts, Yonathan A. Arbel

Articles

Large companies and debt collectors frequently file unmeritorious claims against consumers. Recent high-profile actions brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against J.P. Morgan, Citibank, and other large debt collectors illustrate the breadth and importance of this phenomenon. Due to the limited financial power of individuals, consumers often do not defend against such baseless claims, which results in the entry of millions of default judgments every year. To combat this problem, policymakers and scholars have explored a variety of court-based solutions that would make it easier for consumers to defend in court, but these prove ineffectual.

To solve the problem …

The Potemkin Temptation Or, The Intoxicating Effect Of Rhetoric And Narrativity On American Craft Whiskey, Derek H. Kiernan-Johnson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Consumer Protection In The Age Of Connected Everything, Terrell Mcsweeny

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Free-Market Failure: The Wells Fargo Arbitration Clause Example, Jeff Sovern

Faculty Publications

In September 2016, regulators charged Wells Fargo with opening millions of unauthorized accounts on behalf of its customers. When some of those customers filed class actions against Wells, the bank initially responded by moving to compel arbitration on the ground that the consumers had agreed to arbitrate disputes and waive their class action rights. Because most customers with claims in small amounts would probably have foregone filing an arbitration claim, the effect would have been to leave their damages uncompensated except for the refunding of fees, which Wells agreed to in the consent order it entered into with regulators. The …

Validation And Verification Vignettes: More Results From An Empirical Study Of Consumer Understanding Of Debt Collection Validation Notices, Jeff Sovern, Kate E. Walton, Nathan Frishberg

Faculty Publications

The Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act obliges debt collectors to provide certain notices to consumers from whom they are attempting to collect debts. This Article is our second to report findings from the first academic study of consumer understanding of one of those notices, commonly called the validation notice. We showed consumers different versions of collection letters and then asked questions to measure their understanding of the notices.

This Article explores some issues not discussed in our first Article. For example, in this Article, we examine what consumers thought collectors would have to do in response to a request …

Commodifying Consumer Data In The Era Of The Internet Of Things, Stacy-Ann Elvy

Articles & Chapters

Internet of Things (“IOT”) products generate a wealth of data about consumers that was never before widely and easily accessible to companies. Examples include biometric and health-related data, such as fingerprint patterns, heart rates and calories burned. This Article explores the connection between the types of data generated by the IOT and the financial frameworks of Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code and the Bankruptcy Code. It critiques these regimes, which enable the commodification of consumer data, as well as laws aimed at protecting consumer data, such as the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, various state biometric …

Cities As A Source Of Consumers’ Financial Empowerment, Susan Block-Lieb

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Identity Harm, Sarah Dadush

University of Colorado Law Review

In September 2015, the world learned that Volkswagen had rigged millions of its "clean diesel" vehicles with illegal software designed to cheat emissions tests. Contrary to what had been advertised, the vehicles are anything but clean. When affected owners learned that their cars were toxic, what were they most upset about? Was it that their cars were now worth fewer dollars? Or that they had been deceived into being hyperpolluting drivers, when they thought they were being green? Coverage of the emissions scandal strongly suggests that affected car owners experienced both kinds of disappointment, economic and noneconomic, and in heavy …

Reaching For The Stars: A Proposal To The Ftc To Help Deter Astroturfing And Fake Reviews, Matthew Barish

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Devil's Advocate Also Wears Prada: The Impracticality Of Adr In Counterfeiting Disputes And The Prospect Of Arbitration, Anan Kahari

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

The purpose of this Note is to posit that arbitration, tailored for counterfeiting disputes, could potentially serve as a reliable method for fashion companies to combat counterfeiting. Part II discusses the background of IP rights and the relationship between counterfeiting and fashion. Part III highlights the traditional advantages of ADR and how some of those advantages may become disadvantages when applied to counterfeiting disputes. Lastly, Part IV argues that arbitration can be designed to be applicable to counterfeiting disputes described in this Note.

The Parity Principle, Luke P. Norris

Law Faculty Publications

The Supreme Court has interpreted the Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 (FAA) in a broad way that has allowed firms to widely privatize disputes with workers and consumers. The resulting expansive growth of American arbitration law has left commentators both concerned about the structural inequalities that permeate the regime and in search of an effective limiting principle. This Article develops such a limiting principle from the text and history of the FAA itself. The Article reinterprets the text and history of section 1 of the statute, which, correctly read, excludes individual employee-employer disputes from the statute’s coverage. The Article argues …

Ride Oversharing: Privacy Regulation Within The Gig Economy, Casey Thomas

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Regulatory Measures Imposed On Initial Coin Offerings In The United States Market Economy, Joseph D. Moran

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

With the surge of technological advances across the financial market landscape, companies have implemented new ways of raising money that have sparked controversy among investors, legal practitioners, banks, and government regulators. This comment examines the technology behind Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), and discusses the impact they have had on financial markets in the United States and across the globe. This comment also addresses the legal ramifications for companies issuing ICOs, and delves into the benefits of using blockchain technology as a means for transferring digital currencies and making business transactions. This comment further gives examples of current and potential regulations …

The Financial Counseling Industry: Past, Present, And Policy Recommendations, David A. Lander

All Faculty Scholarship

Financial counseling plays an important role for low- and moderate-income Americans and deserves more attention from leaders in the field. As financial counseling has evolved, the providers have been challenged to find a model that is both borrower centered and sustainable. This article provides a diagnosis of the failures and challenges in the financial counseling field, as well as a discussion of steps through which the providers could optimally serve families in need. These steps include (a) enhanced funding of the industry as a result of a recognition by financial stakeholders that it would be beneficial for them if the …

Access To Consumer Bankruptcy, Pamela Foohey

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This essay examines the state of access to justice in the context of consumer bankruptcy from two vantage points: (1) how people decide that their money problems are legal problems addressable by filing bankruptcy; and (2) the barriers people face in using the consumer bankruptcy system. To shed new light on how people decide to use bankruptcy to address their financial troubles, I analyze a sample of narratives accompanying consumers' complaints about financial products and services submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I also chronicle the evolution of research regarding consumer bankruptcy’s “local legal culture,” systemic racial bias, and …

Assessing The Efficacy Of The Cfpb's Regulation Of Student Loan Companies, Ian E. Calhoun

Georgia Law Review

Outstanding student loan balances totaled over
$1.38 trillion as of December 31, 2017 with 11% of
student loan debt over ninety days delinquent or in
default. Due to half of all student loans being in
deferment, grace periods, or forbearance, the actual
delinquency rate is likely double the above figure.
Delinquent student borrowers enrolled in some form of
college education expect to improve their financial
position. Instead, many find themselves unable to break
even under the weight of large amounts of debt with
confusing, and often misleading, repayment plans.
Many blame the lending practices of student loan
providers and servicers …

The Admissibility Of Sampling Evidence To Prove Individual Damages In Class Actions, Hillel J. Bavli, John Kenneth Felter

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The 2016 Supreme Court decision in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo revived the use of “representative” or sampling evidence in class actions. Federal courts are now more receptive to class plaintiffs’ efforts to prove classwide liability and, occasionally, aggregate damages, with sampling evidence. However, federal courts still routinely deny motions for class certification because they find that calculations of class members’ individual damages defeat the predominance prerequisite of Rule 23(b)(3). As a result, meritorious classwide claims founder. In this paper, we combine legal and statistical analyses and propose a novel solution to this dilemma that adheres to the Tysondecision …

Pluralism And Regulatory Response To The Sharing Economy, Erez Aloni

All Faculty Publications

Providers use platforms in dissimilar ways. Some providers create new capacity and designate it for exclusively commercial use via platforms. For example, a provider buys a car that serves predominantly for driving paying passengers, converts a standard residential rental to a short-term rental, or works full-time via a platform. Conversely, other providers leverage their idle capacity and monetize it (e.g., a provider uses the family car to drive platform passengers in the evenings). This chapter argues that the distinction between new and idle capacity is a fundamental concept that should guide regulation of activities in the platform economy. Creating new …