Caveat Emptor

As part of their plans to grind Congress to a halt, the GOP swore to block any nomination of a head to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. However, according to the New York Times, the President plans to appoint Cordray while Congress is in recess. The legality of the move is apparently a bit murky, [...]

President Obama Plans Recess Appointment for Cordray is a post from Caveat Emptor

Most “regular” Americans—those making under $100,000 per year—pay about 35% of their taxable income to the IRS. Those who earn more than a $1 million per year pay less than 30%, and the wealthiest 400 Americans pay about 18%, on average. This makes the US tax code regressive: the less you earn, the more you [...]

Tax Loopholes for the Rich Weaken the Middle Class is a post from Caveat Emptor

Heeding cries of outrage from the internet, Verizon decided to drop the “convenience fee” it planned to start charging for single credit card payments. Look for the cost of future Verizon cell phone plans to rise by $2, which the internet won’t complain about because it isn’t called a “convenience fee,” and everyone will pay [...]

Update: Verizon Backs Down on “Convenience Fee” is a post from Caveat Emptor

Homeowner Nancy Gosselin hasn’t missed a payment since she refinanced her house with Bremer Bank in 2005. Bremer agrees. But CitiMortgage, which wound up purchasing the loan, started assessing late fees more than two years ago, refused to accept Gosselin’s mortgage payments, and then started foreclosure proceedings last spring to collect those late fees and [...]

CitiMortgage Forecloses in Error, Wants Attorney Fees Anyway is a post from Caveat Emptor

It didn’t take long for companies to realize they could save a lot of money on personnel and supplies by eliminating paper bills and accepting online payments. For the most part, this has been a good thing for consumers. Paperless bills are generally more efficient for everyone, and online payment is really convenient. To encourage [...]

Are “Convenience Fees” Just Another Way Companies Nickel-and-Dime Consumers? is a post from Caveat Emptor

Countrywide’s headlong rush to write as many loans as possible was really an effort to extract as many fees as possible from those transactions. That’s how mortgage originators make their money. Countrywide’s brokers also systematically discriminated against minorities (about two-thirds Hispanic and one-third black); in over 200,000 cases, it jacked up interest rates and fees, [...]

Countrywide (Bank of America) to Pay $335 Million For Racist Lending Practices is a post from Caveat Emptor

Congress wants to create a totalitarian internet with SOPA and PROTECT IP, two bills wending their way through the House and Senate. These bills are even dumber than Senator Klobuchar’s attempt to turn kids into criminals for uploading videos of themselves singing along with their favorite artists. But hey, it’s Congress. And senators and representatives [...]

Don’t Let the Government Ruin the Internets is a post from Caveat Emptor

The same banks that used to make—or finance—the subprime loans that sent the world economy into a nosedive are now making and financing payday loans. Now they just use TARP funds and cheap loans from the Fed. Payday loans are still subprime loans, but the risk is built into the enormous interest rates, which average [...]

Wells Fargo and US Bank Are Payday Lenders, Other Big Banks Finance Payday Loans is a post from Caveat Emptor

Since I started Caveat Emptor, I have written many articles on debt collection, but I have never gathered them all in one place. Now, I have. The Debt Collection Help resource page is the first of several resource pages I am working on that will pull together my best posts in one convenient place. New Debt Collection Help Resource Page [...]

New Debt Collection Help Resource Page is a post from Caveat Emptor