Consumer advocates cheered and the banking industry fumed when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau made its credit card complaint database public last week. Banking analyst Ken Thomas got to work. Thomas sifted through this …
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Is the CFPB Anti-Housewife? Unintended Consequences Strike Again
Credit card reform legislation has done lots of great things for consumers, like eliminating universal default and preventing card companies from jacking up interest rates just for the heck of it. But a provision intended to make sure issuers don’t let people run up more debt than they can pay off has the unintended consequence of …
The Growing Debate Over Prepaid Debit Cards
At an event in Durham, N.C. on Wednesday, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray announced that the agency is “decid[ing] how we should go about regulating prepaid cards to better protect consumers and to provide clear rules for prepaid providers.”
The rapidly growing prepaid market is attracting both banks and …
How to Get the CFPB to Address Your Most Pressing Money Needs
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is testing a new website that it hopes will answer all your money questions in the near future. Here’s your chance to let them know what you need most.
How Service Contracts Rob You of Your Rights (and What the CFPB Is Doing About It)
While you’ve been pretending to read the fine print on everything from your cell phone contract to your Starbucks card, companies have been slipping in legalese that robs you of your rights. A little-understood but rapidly expanding practice called “mandatory arbitration” is replacing your right to sue a company in court — a right many …
They’re Baaack: Americans Paid $31.6 Billion in Overdraft Fees in 2011 — and the CFPB Ain’t Happy
Federal Reserve rules implemented in 2010 were supposed to protect customers from getting hit with overdraft fees if they unwittingly made a purchase that put their account in the red. Now, two years later, banks are still raking …
‘No Runaround’ Mortgage Rules Proposed by CFPB
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is taking aim at the mortgage industry again, this time focusing on making mortgage servicers provide customers with better and more transparent information about their home loans. The CFPB is unveiling a series of proposed rules for the industry, which it will formalize this summer and implement …
Occupy Wall Street Is Only Half Right About Credit Reform
Do we really want to take financial advice from a bunch of kids living in tents? Surprisingly, we just might.
Old ‘Nigerian Lottery’ Scam Gets a New Twist
Prepaid-debit-card providers like to make the argument that their products can be used just like bank accounts, but there’s one major way in which prepaid debit differs from bank-issued cards tied to an account or line of credit: …
Privacy? Here’s How Data Mining Might Actually Help Consumers
With so much concern over privacy in the digital world, it’s worth noting how the careful disclosure of consumer data might actually help. This is especially true in the area of personal finance, where the newly minted federal …
Ticked Off at Your Bank? Finally, a Sympathetic Ear
As of March 1, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has opened a complaints department to collect all sorts of consumer gripes about their deposit accounts — checking, savings, CDs and what the agency terms “related services.”
The CFPB Wants to Give You Better Overdraft Fee Protection
It’s hard to overstate how much bank customers hate overdraft fees, but we still shelled out nearly $30 billion on them last year. The Federal Reserve attempted to rein in the “gotcha” factor with new rules in 2010, but banks have exploited loopholes in them and increased the fees. Now, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is trying …
