Less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows are currently tested for Mad Cow disease under Agriculture Department guidelines, because the agency believes that more widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could result in a false positive that scares consumers. So when Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef tried to increase testing to reassure Japanese consumers, the Ag Dept. sued. Fortunately, some judges are smarter than all that and at least recognize the testing as a good thing for providing the consumer with more information. According to the Associated press larger meatpackers have opposed Creekstone’s push to allow wider testing out of fear that consumer pressure (the free market) would force them to begin testing all animals too. Increased testing would raise the price of meat by a few cents per pound. It appears the Court of Appeals maybe on the side of more information is a good thing.
My officemate, Pete Barry, was on the local Fox 9 News last night in a story about abusive debt collectors, especially one of his clients. The segment includes some of Pete’s “greatest hits” from his cases, including some pretty impressive language and threats. (1)
The New Jersey District Court fined two individuals and one corporation $530,000 for calling consumers who registered with the national Do Not Call registry and for spoofing caller ID information. (Telemarketers are required to transmit accurate caller ID information or none at all.)
(Thanks, Jason!) (0)
Like a sort of perpetual-motion machine for debt—a perpetual-debt machine, rather—Oregon debt collection agency Genesis Financial Solutions has started issuing credit cards to consumers, with the balance equal to the debt the consumer allegedly owes. As the consumer pays off the debt, of course, they generate more debt, making sure they remain “customers” for life.
While the interest rates are not terrible, this replaces a dubious debt—debt buyers and collectors can rarely even prove they own many debts, much less that the consumer owes it—with a certain one, renewing the statute of limitations and keeping the cycle of debt going.
What might surprise many of us cynics practicing consumer law, is that a court recognized this possibility, and it was a Federal Court of Appeals no less.
As Sam mentioned, AFFIL is a campaign to raise awareness about predatory lending and create support for regulation of the lending industry.Even after the subprime mortgage meltdown, support for real regulation is dangerously absent in Congress, as their recent behavior shows.
At a March townhall event here in Boston organized by MassPIRG and SEIU, Representative Barney Frank lamented that the consumer movement is like a “horseless headman.”This, of course, is a pun on the infamous literary character, the headless horseman.
What he meant to say, I suppose, is that the consumer movement has some top-notch thinkers in DC monitoring legislation and fighting for consumers.But we’re missing the powerful horse; we’re missing enough involvement by everyday American people to make real change.
Posted by Sam Glover on April 30, 2008 | Permalink
I learned a curious fact in the course of an arbitration proceeding with the National Arbitration Forum. Once either party obtains a stay of the arbitration, the opposing party has 15 days to file an objection. After that 15 days is up, apparently only the party that requested the stay can lift it.
In other words, if a debt collector requests a stay, and that stay was reasonable at the outset, but the debt collector then does nothing at all for months and months, until it gets to the point of being unreasonable, you are stuck. NAF will not lift the stay.
Yet another way in which arbitration is worse than the court system. In court, you can always ask the judge to make an exception. Apparently the same does not hold true in arbitration proceedings.
The lesson? Always object to a request for an indefinite stay. Demand a definite stay, if anything.
Posted by Nick Slade on April 29, 2008 | Permalink
I don’t watch legal shows on TV, because they are so far from reality that they make me crazy, but this clip from Boston Legal, is worth watching. It is of course fictional, but as a comment on the reality of the Court it is the cold hard truth, more real than the fictions that too often pass for justice.
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