The $12 Billion Overdraft Trap: State Options to Limit Overdraft and Nonsufficient Fund Fees
Overdraft and nonsufficient funds (NSF) fees can drain money that people need for rent, food, and medical expenses.
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Tenant Insecurity: How Security Deposit "Alternatives" Raise Tenants' Costs and Erode their Protections
Updated June 5, 2026. A previous version of this report misstated a description of LeaseLock’s product. “PropTech” is compounding the unaffordability and precarity of securing and maintaining rental housing. The proliferation of property technology has become another way to extract profits from tenants desperate for a roof over their heads. This report focuses on one…
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Limited Income Mechanism for Utility Customers (Maryland)
This report was prepared for the Public Service Commission of Maryland by the PC59 Work Group, the Maryland Energy Advocates Coalition (MEAC), which includes the National Consumer Law Center. The Work Group developed and proposed a limited-income mechanism to help ensure customers have an energy burden of approximately 6%. The Work Group requests the Commission…
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The Other Foreclosure Crisis: Property Tax Lien Sales
Much attention has been focused rightly on the home mortgage foreclosure crisis. The devastation it has caused individual homeowners, the housing market, and the broader national and international economies is unlike anything experienced since the Great Depression. It is not surprising that some of the same economic conditions that have fueled the mortgage foreclosure crisis…
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Safe Deposits: How to Protect Family Bank Accounts from Debt Collectors
As debt collection lawsuits surge to pre-pandemic highs, more and more families will see their cash and property seized by debt collectors. All states protect some of a family’s property from seizure by debt collectors to enforce a court ruling for a debt, but in some states the protection is minimal or is so difficult…
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Picking Workers' Pockets: Unfair, Deceptive and Abusive Practices by Earned Wage Payday Lenders
Fueling the ongoing affordability crisis, new types of payday loans offered through cash advance apps – so-called “earned wage access products”– drain hundreds of dollars a year from thin wages.
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Predatory Installment Lending in the States: How Well Do the States Protect Consumers Against High-Cost Installment Loans? (2025)
© Copyright 2025, National Consumer Law Center, Inc. All rights reserved. Caps on interest rates and junk fees are the primary vehicle by which states protect consumers from predatory lending. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia currently cap interest rates and loan fees for at least some consumer installment loans, depending on the size…
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Disregarded and In Debt: Understanding Barriers to Relief for Victims of Coerced Debt
Coerced debt occurs when an abuser either fraudulently opens accounts in the victim’s name or coerces the victim into taking on debt they would not have otherwise obtained. This can be done by using threats, manipulation, or even physical force.
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Driving Out of Poverty in Private Automobiles
When America set out to replace welfare with work, it was generally recognized that the transportation needs of new workers would have to be met in order for this reform policy to succeed. Four years after the full implementation of welfare reform, the lack of an adequate transportation solution has emerged as one of the…
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Imperfect Competition in Auto Lending: Subjective Markup, RacialDisparity, and Class Action Litigation
While the market for auto lending at first appears to be highly competitive, manyconsumers lack the ability to obtain accurate information about price. In many markets,uninformed consumers can “free ride” off the knowledge of informed consumers. However, the market for auto lending differs from traditional markets because priceultimately depends upon both the credit worthiness of…
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Turn On the Tap
Case studies explore how low-income water affordability and assistance programs around the country are using data sharing to increase participation.
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Seizing the Safety Net: Collecting Criminal Justice Debt with Tax Refund Offsets
This report looks at one little-known method of collecting criminal justice debt—seizing income tax refunds—and highlights the financial harms for justice-involved individuals and their families when the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC) are seized as part of that tax refund. This report: Summary of Recommendations: Federal and state governments…
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