News

2018

June

07

• Mulvaney fires all 25 members of consumer watchdog’s advisory board. Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, fired the agency’s 25-member advisory board, days after some of its members criticized his leadership of the watchdog agency. The CFPB said it will revamp…

06

• States ask CFPB to keep complaints database public. Fourteen Democratic state attorneys general are asking the CFPB to keep its consumer complaint database open to the public. State law enforcers risk losing a valuable tool to help “identify patterns of widespread misconduct,” New…

05

• Getting down payment help now. Sharing home’s gain (or loss) later. For aspiring homeowners, coming up with a healthy down payment has long been the biggest obstacle to owning a home.  Now, a small but growing number of home buyers are trying something different: asking an…

• Teaching new mortgage lender a lesson backfires on homeowner. Q: My mortgage was sold to a loan processor in 2011. I got a welcome letter saying my payment was $635 when it really should have been $1,036 per month. I kept calling to ask…

04

• Groups tell temporary CFPB director: Hands off the public database!. Keep the public consumer complaint database open was the clear message sent by scores of groups to the temporary acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) today. Consumer, civil rights, fair lending, privacy,…

• Do not go gently into that financial regulatory rollback. The recent deregulatory push isn’t just the work of our checked-out president and a Republican congressional majority that is devoted to providing valued goodies to their donor base. It’s the return of bipartisan, lobby-driven amnesia…

• The U.N. says Trump is making life harder for the poor. A top human rights investigator is criticizing the United States for failing the poor. Philip Alston, U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, has spent the past several months visiting impoverished communities across the…

• Deadline looms for consumer complaint database public weigh in. Should consumers, businesses, and others be able to read complaints people have shared about financial services companies? If you have an opinion, you have until Monday to make your view known to officials at the…

01

• Consumer Action INSIDER - June 2018. This month's INSIDER highlights the 2018 Consumer Lobby Day in Washington, DC; updates you on the latest changes to the California LifeLine discounted phone service program; gives advice on how you can use social media to complain about your customer concerns; and promotes our new Vision Action Center (which outlines the rights of consumers who purchase contact lenses and eyeglasses), among other articles. We also update readers on our latest "coalition efforts" and list the latest lawsuit settlements from our Class Action Database.

May

30

• You’ll be able to freeze your credit for free — but that won’t end ID theft. Last week, a new law torched some of the banking rules that were put in place after the financial crisis to protect us. But also tucked into the otherwise awful bill was a win for…

25

• How student debt can ruin home buying dreams. Homeownership among Americans in their 20s and 30s is hovering near a three-decade low. Just 35 percent of households headed by someone younger than 35 owned a home in 2017, down from 41 percent in…

24

• If companies can protect user data in Europe, they can protect it everywhere (Advocates release letter urging companies to adopt Europe’s new data protection rules worldwide). Washington, D.C. – U.S. companies should adopt essentially the same data protection rules that are poised to go into effect in the European Union on May 25, Public Citizen, the Center for Digital Democracy and…

• Many home loan applications get denied. For blacks, Hispanics, Asians rejection's higher. Surprisingly, large numbers of loan applications don’t make it. About 1 of every 9 loan applications (10.8 percent) to purchase a home — and more than 1 in 4 applications (26.4 percent) for a refinancing — were…

23

• Congress approves plan to roll back post-financial-crisis rules for banks. The House on Tuesday passed a plan to roll back banking regulations passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis, sending the bill to President Trump to sign.The measure leaves the central structure of the…

21

• Ways to cash in on your home equity (and the tax implications). Although financial planners recommend leaving your equity untouched until you’re ready to sell your house, many homeowners are tempted by the ready cash. Black Knight, a real estate data analytics company, estimates that $5.4 trillion…

18

• Three men charged with scamming agricultural guest workers. Federal authorities charged three Southern California men with fraud and conspiracy Thursday, saying the trio illegally charged Mexican workers for agricultural guest-worker visas, then billed them for housing and other services that are supposed to…

• Wall Street is scooping up homes for rent as leasing prices outpace apartment rents. Institutional investors bought more single-family rental homes in 2017 than in previous years, the first increase since 2013, according to data compiled by Amherst Holdings LLC.

17

• Democrats on FTC vote no on consumer protection appointee. The two Democrats on the five-member Federal Trade Commission voted to oppose the appointment of a lawyer tapped to head the commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection because of his previous work for Equifax and other…

16

• A new low down-payment option for first-time home buyers. Buyers looking for a low down-payment loan often turn to FHA loans, which require a down payment of 3.5 percent, or a Fannie Mae HomeReady mortgage, which requires a down payment of 3 percent. Now…

15

• Seattle aprueba impuesto a compañías grandes. Las mayores compañías en Seattle, como Amazon y Starbucks, tendrán que pagar un nuevo impuesto para ayudar a financiar servicios para los desamparados y viviendas de bajo costo, bajo una nueva medida...