The Center filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of a California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) regulation requiring sales-based financing providers to disclose their APRs, finance charges, and loan terms to borrowers – typically small businesses and solo entrepreneurs.
The Center’s brief notes that in recent years online lending companies have been providing new “sales-based...
It's been a hotter-than-normal summer here in Berkeley, and we're not just talking about the weather! This past month, the Center teamed up with our friends (of-the-court and otherwise!) at Truth In Advertising, Inc. (TINA) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to file amicus briefs in the Fifth and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals on two hot topics for consumers: False Advertising By Tax Preparation Software In one brief, we weighed in with Truth In...
It’s not often these days that consumer advocates can cheer a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, but that’s what we’re doing today after the Court held unanimously on Thursday, in USDA Rural Development Rural Housing Service Inc. v. Kirtz, that consumers may sue the federal government if it provides false or inaccurate information to credit reporting agencies.
The Center, along with the National Consumer Law Center,...
If you’ve ever purchased a car, you know that it is one of the most complicated, frustrating, and opaque consumer transactions—and one that is rife with junk fees and deceptive sales tactics. The Federal Trade Commission recently issued a landmark regulation, the Combating Auto Retail Scams (CARS) Rule, to tackle these problems and to mandate transparency and fairness in the vehicle buying process. And as the Center explained in an...
With help from the Center and our partner the Student Borrower Protection Center, last week student loan borrowers scored a major victory preserving the Department of Education’s Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) and Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a challenge to these programs, which benefit borrowers who have endured years, even decades, of mismanagement of their student loans.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the independent funding structure of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), ensuring that an agency that has returned more than $20 billion in wrongly-taken money to American consumers in the past dozen years will be able to continue doing the work it was designed to do.
The Court’s ruling rejected a challenge by the payday loan industry to the Bureau’s funding structure. Under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the Bureau requests its annual funding not from Congress — like...
Yesterday, the Center, along with a cavalcade of prominent consumer, worker and advocacy organizations, filed an amicus brief urging the California Supreme Court to implement recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and reject an arbitration-specific version of equitable estoppel that allows corporate defendants to enforce arbitration clauses against consumers with whom they never signed a contract....
Yesterday, the Center, along with our co-counsel – Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety (CARS), California Association for Microenterprise Opportunity (CAMEO), East Bay Community Law Center, Impact Fund, Legal Aid At Work, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and Public Justice – filed an amicus brief ...
At the urging of the Center on behalf of nine legal services and consumer advocacy organizations, along with the plaintiffs, the California Court of Appeal has ordered publication of its recent decision in Jones v. Solgen Construction, LLC The previously unpublished decision – which may now be cited – provides guidance to courts and litigants in addressing the growing problem of fraud in door-to-door residential solar panel sales.
Last week, a federal court in Los Angeles upheld regulations promulgated by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) that require sales-based financing providers to disclose their products' APR and other costs to borrowers, typically small businesses and micro-entrepreneurs. The Center, along with our co-counsel Public Counsel and fellow amici California Association for Microenterprise Opportunity (CAMEO), Responsible Business Lending...