Newsroom

The New York Times: What Is a ‘Zombie Mortgage,’ and How Can You Avoid It?

December 13, 2025

Appearing in The New York Times on December 13, 2025, Jill Terreri Ramos interviews NCLC Senior Attorney Andrea Bopp Stark to help answer a reader’s question about an outstanding “zombie mortgage” held by the previous owners of a home, who didn’t disclose it during the sale. Hopefully, hiring your own attorney will help you understand…

NPR: Should you use buy now, pay later? Experts share 4 tips to know

December 13, 2025

Airing on NPR’s Planet Money on December 13, 2025, Vito Emanuel talks to NCLC Associate Director and Director of Federal Advocacy Lauren Saunders about how more shoppers are choosing to buy now, pay later this holiday season. Saunders warns it’s easy to borrow too much and lose track of how much you’re paying and when…

NCLC’s Year in Economic Justice: 2025

December 29, 2025

NCLC advocates resisted rollbacks of federal consumer protections and fought to increase state-level protections.

NCLC 2025: By the Numbers

December 29, 2025

The National Consumer Law Center advanced consumer justice in many ways in 2025. In addition to direct advocacy on behalf of low-income consumers, we provided training to the consumer law community through in-person conferences, webinars, digital articles and publications, online resources, and in the media. Here’s a look at NCLC in numbers in 2025. Conferences…

Earned Wage Payday Loans are Loans, Despite CFPB’s Claim

December 22, 2025

Courts Have Unanimously Rejected Claims that Payday Loan Apps Do Not Offer Loans and That Their Fees Are Not Finance Charges WASHINGTON – The advisory opinion issued today by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that claims that so-called “earned wage access products” offered through certain payday loan apps are not loans, and that the…

Report: No States Fully Protect Families from Wage and Asset Seizures as Debt Levels Soar

December 18, 2025

On State Report Cards, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Utah, and Wyoming Get Fs; No State Receives an A

Trump Administration Proposal to Gut ECOA Would Resurrect Lending Hurdles for Women, Black People, Veterans, and Native Americans

December 16, 2025

Proposed Rule Would Decimate Fair Lending Protections and Make Buying a Car or Home Harder

Digital Library: Tenth Circuit Limits Rent-a-Bank Schemes

Predatory lenders use rent-a-bank schemes to evade state usury limits and charge astronomical rates—100%, 500% and even higher—that are illegal in as many as 45 states. In a classic rent-a-bank scheme, a high-cost lender “rents” a state bank chartered in a state without usury limits for banks and then evades other states’ usury caps by…

AI Order Seeks to Block States from Protecting People from Big Tech Risks

December 12, 2025

E.O. Ignores that U.S. Constitution Preserves States’ Role as First Responder WASHINGTON – The executive order President Trump issued yesterday aimed at blocking states from addressing artificial intelligence (AI) risks flies in the face of the critical and constitutional role states have in protecting the public, according to advocates at the National Consumer Law Center. It…

60+ Civil Rights, Consumer, Labor, Technology Organizations Oppose Legislation Allowing Financial Firms Using AI to Ignore the Law

December 10, 2025

AI sandbox bill would lead to lending discrimination, consumer harm, and financial instability.

Proposed Elimination of SAVE Plan Creates Uncertainty, Affordability Concerns for Student Loan Borrowers

December 9, 2025

Proposed Settlement Terminates Hopes of Loan Forgiveness for Millions and Will Lead to Higher Bills for 7M+ Borrowers WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of Education announced a proposed settlement that would end the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, which offered millions of federal student loan borrowers lower monthly payments and a pathway…

The Hill: The Trump administration takes a wrecking ball to rulemaking

November 26, 2025

In an op-ed for The Hill that ran on November 26, 2025 by Rebecca B. Bond, former chief of the Disability Rights Section, Civil Rights Division, in the U.S. Department of Justice and Diane Thompson, deputy director and chief advocacy officer at the National Consumer Law Center discuss a dry, technical memo that declared the end of…

Newsroom

Support NCLC