All Resources
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Report: Commercialized (In)Justice 2019
Consumer abuses in the bail and corrections industry Since 1980, the number of people incarcerated in America increased from roughly 500,000 to over 2.2 million, and currently 4.5 million people across the nation are on probation or parole. During this time, state and local governments have sought to shift the cost of operating the criminal…
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Reversing Energy System Inequity: Urgency and Opportunity During the Clean Energy Transition
Families in America with the least means pay disproportionately more for their electricity, sometimes lacking basic access to service altogether. It’s a fundamental inequity of our current energy landscape, and one that can lead to dangerous repercussions. It’s also a challenge we can absolutely address, and the sweeping changes transforming the power sector today are…
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The Rent-to-Own Racket: Using Criminal Courts to Coerce Payments from Vulnerable Families
In states across the country, the rent-to-own (RTO) industry is abusing the criminal system to extract payment from low-income consumers who have fallen behind on payments on abusive contracts. Under little-known laws often written years ago by the industry lobby, RTO companies are able to turn a dispute over a furniture set into threats of…
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Automated Injustice Redux: Ten Years After a Key Report, Consumers Are Still Frustrated Trying to Fix Credit Reporting Errors
Ten years ago, the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) issued Automated Injustice: How a Mechanized Dispute System Frustrates Consumers Seeking to Fix Errors in their Credit Reports, the landmark report on the serious dysfunctions in the American credit reporting system. Since then, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) began exercising supervision authority over the Big…
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Coalition Letter to CFPB Director Kraninger Regarding Ongoing Rulemaking on Debt Collection
As we approach the fifth year anniversary of the proposed rulemaking on debt collection, and the regulatory process appears to be moving forward, the 74 undersigned consumer, community, civil rights, faith, labor and legal services groups write to urge the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“Consumer Bureau”) to focus on protecting consumers from abusive debt collection…
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Criminal Justice Debt in the South: A Primer for the Southern Partnership to Reduce Debt
This primer is intended to support advocates seeking to identify policy reforms to address the problems with current criminal justice debt practices and restore integrity to our justice system. It begins with a brief overview of some of the most harmful consequences of current criminal justice debt practices, then provides recommended reforms, and ends with…
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Transparent and Consistent Pricing of Motor Vehicle Add-Ons Act
Pricing for add-on products sold by car dealers, such as service contracts, GAP (Guaranteed Asset Protection), and window etching, is not transparent o consistent. Consumers, and even most regulators, lack information about what car buyers are charged for these products and what a reasonable price might be. Dealers decide what to charge each consumer and…
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Predatory Installment Lending in the States: A Larger and Longer Debt Trap? (2018)
Analysis of States’ APR Caps for a $10,000 five-year Installment Loan Everything that is wrong with a high-cost loan is only made worse when the loan is larger and longer. Even when the interest rate is lower than for a short-term payday loan, a larger, longer high-cost loan can be a deeper, longer debt trap.…
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