News

2018

June

20

• Warren announces hold on Trump’s CFPB nomination, citing border policy. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said yesterday that she will put a hold on the nomination of Kathy Kraninger to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) until Kraninger turns over all documents about any role

18

• Trump taps budget aide to head Consumer Bureau. The White House on Saturday said it would nominate Kathy Kraninger, a White House budget official, to serve as the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in a push to continue scaling back

• Is the gig economy a myth?. A new survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that, in 2017, the share of workers in “alternative employment arrangements” (gig jobs and other) was 10.1 percent of total employment, almost exactly what it

16

• Credit freezes will soon be free for everyone. Starting this fall, the big three credit reporting agencies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — will be required to let you freeze your credit file for free. A freeze can help prevent identity thieves from

12

• Air ambulances leave patients with $45,000 bills. The air-ambulance industry says reimbursements from U.S. government health programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, don’t cover their expenses. The companies say they thus must ask others to pay more — and when

11

• Five ways Mulvaney is cracking down on his own agency. The acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) often says that the only reason he hasn't burned the agency down is because it's illegal. Mick Mulvaney, the staunchly conservative White House

09

• Why did the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fire us?. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is being gutted from the inside out. Created in 2010 after the Great Recession, during which the typical American household lost one-third of its wealth, the bureau was established to put

• Trump's consumer agency chief looks to shut down complaint database. The Trump administration may shut down a federal database of consumer complaints about the financial-services industry. Banks think that’s a swell idea. “In what world does it make sense to give consumers

08

• Here’s the bible on navigating social security. Social Security and retirement go together like peanut butter and jelly — many people just can’t have one without the other. Yet when it comes to Social Security, there is a mountain of

• Recounting ‘horror stories’ over Guitar Center’s warranties. Whether to buy a warranty is, of course, a perennial question, and not just for musicians. I rank it up there with conundrums like buying rental car insurance and ordering dessert.

07

• Protecting privacy is a civil rights issue. Sweeping privacy violations have the strange effect of revealing that the tracking of consumers by marketers affects everyone while hiding how that tracking hurts some people far more than others. People who value their privacy

• 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

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,

• The simple message from Social Security and Medicare trustees. It is unconscionable to pass $2 trillion in regressive tax cuts (that’s also about 1 percent of GDP over the next decade) and then argue that the nation cannot afford to insure against the economic

05

• EEUU: Medicare se quedará sin dinero antes de los previsto. El Medicare se quedará sin dinero más pronto de lo que se había previsto anteriormente, y los problemas financieros del Seguro Social no pueden ser pasados por alto por siempre,

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,

• 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

• 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.

• Why some patients getting drugmakers' help are paying more. Until recently payments by the drug company helped Kristen Catton save money on her medical out-of-pocket expenses, because they counted toward her family's $8,800 annual pharmacy deductible on their health plan. But this year, Catton