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 …
consumer protection
Here’s How Your Identity Will Be Stolen: The Top 10 Scams
For the past 12 years, the top category of consumer complaints fielded by the Federal Trade Commission has been identity theft. In 2011, this category made up 15% of all complaints. Crooks have many ways of stealing your personal …
Exploding Ice Cream Scoops and Dangerous Dishwashers: A Year of Consumer Safety Complaints
After an unsure start and a threat to its very existence, the government-run database that documents consumers’ safety issues with everything from dishwashers to tricycles survived its first year and is beginning to mature into …
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: …
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.”
CFPB’s First Move with a Director in Place: Confront ‘Nonbanks’
One day after President Obama appointed Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the objections of Senate Republicans, the bureau announced the launch of a new “nonbank supervision program.”
