Headline News Archive

2022

June

22

• Justice Department and Meta settle landmark housing discrimination case. Facebook-owner Meta agreed to revamp the social network’s targeted advertising system under a sweeping settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, after the

21

• Customers say banks refuse to pay when money is stolen on Zelle. In recent years, payment apps like Zelle, Venmo and Cash App have become the preferred way for millions of customers to transfer money from one

15

• What parents need to know about child ID theft. Kids usually don’t find out they’ve been victims of identity theft until they take a big life step like applying for

14

• Doctor check-in software harvests your health data. There’s a burgeoning business in harvesting our patient data to target us with ultra-personalized ads. Patients who think medical information should come from

13

• Cheaper than payday loans, but earned wage access fees can add up. Ryan isn't the only hourly worker using an employer-provided app to tap wages between paychecks. Largely unregulated, these earned-wage access apps have grown in

07

• Massive rent increases hit mobile homes. Surging home prices and rents are cascading down to the country’s mobile home parks, where heightened demand, low supply and an increase in

02

• You can ask Google to take your personal data out of its search results. Google is offering a new tool to anyone who doesn't want their phone number, email or street address and other personal information to be

• Education Dept. to clear $5.8B in debt of Corinthian Colleges students. The Biden administration will forgive $5.8 billion in debt held by 560,000 former students of the defunct for-profit chain Corinthian Colleges. The decision covers people who were

• Nobody reads privacy policies. How to give us real privacy choices.. I applaud Twitter for putting effort into being more understandable. The same goes for Facebook, which last week rewrote its infamous privacy policy to a

May

26

• Twitter pays $150 million penalty for breaking privacy promises again. It’s FTC 101. Companies can’t tell consumers they will use their personal information for one purpose and then use it for another.

17

• Buy now, pay dearly?. Buy now, pay later companies like Klarna, Afterpay and Affirm have taken the country by storm ever since the pandemic fueled an online shopping explosion.

• Income-targeted student loan forgiveness invites a ‘train wreck' (Michael Stratford, Politico). As President Joe Biden weighs a final decision on canceling “some” amount of federal student loan debt his aides have been working on

11

• Consumers lured Into predatory car repair loans. Auto repair shops affiliated with well-known brands—including AAMCO, Big O Tires, Grease Monkey, Jiffy Lube, Meineke, Midas, and Precision Tune Auto Care&mdash

05

• Bank of America to pay $10 million for illegal garnishments. The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said it ordered Bank of America to pay a $10-million civil penalty for processing payments to creditors from

April

28

• Medicare Advantage plans often deny needed care. Every year, tens of thousands of people enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans are denied necessary care that should be covered under the program, federal

26

• Senators question Zelle over its response to reports of rising fraud. Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bob Menendez of New Jersey took aim at Zelle, the popular money transfer app, warning that it is putting

• How to opt out of Venmo’s new arbitration clause. If you use the Venmo app, you probably recently received an email explaining that the company is making changes to its user agreement — including

20

• More student loan borrowers will get help. The U.S. Department of Education says it will retroactively help millions of federal student loan borrowers who have been hurt and held back by

18

• Find out and fix what big data says about you. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau maintains a list of consumer reporting agencies that’s currently 38 pages long. In addition to the big three credit

• 8 questions about student loan default and "fresh start". The Department of Education (ED) announced a four-month extension of the current student loan payment pause—which also includes pauses on interest and collections

13

• The federal consumer bureau sued TransUnion over deceptive sales tactics. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued the credit-reporting firm TransUnion and a former senior executive — John Danaher, who led the company’s consumer

11

• The student loan pause won’t last forever. The extension for student loan repayment, interest and collections now runs until Aug. 31. But there was major news for people who were in default. The

03

• How the most affordable student loan program failed low-income borrowers. More than 9 million borrowers are currently enrolled in income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which are designed to help people who cannot afford to make large monthly

March

31

• New government site to help Americans find Covid antiviral pills. During his State of the Union address, President Biden promised to establish a “test-to-treat” program “so people can get tested at a

29

• Your shadow credit score could decide if you get an apartment. The rapid rise of tenant screening is one of the seismic changes to hit the rental market since the Great Recession. Tenant screening companies compile