In an email sent to CFPB staff on Wednesday, CFPB chief legal officer Mark Paoletta announced that the agency would be shifting its focus away from its supervisory roles and towards “tangible harm to consumers.” Medical debt, student loans, consumer data, and digital payments have all been identified as topics the CFPB will “deprioritize,” according to the document. https://www.wired.com/story/cfpb-has-been-gutted/
One of Australia's biggest super funds is freezing services until June
By Adelaide Miller
HESTA won't process super contributions, regular withdraws, investment switches and insurance claims until June, due to a system changeover. Consumer advocates and members have expressed concern about the freeze on funds.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-18/hesta-super-stops-withdrawals-claims-until-june/105188942
'Gambling without limits': How video games are fleecing kids
By Michael Atkin and Angela Heathcote
Popular video games are utilising harmful tactics to trap kids into spending more cash and more time gaming, a new consumer report finds.
Clorox fined $8.25m over misleading 'ocean plastic' claims on GLAD bags
By Heloise Vyas
The manufacturer of GLAD waste disposal and food storage bags, hit with $8.25 million federal penalty for making incorrect product recycling claims.
@jkn Yes, I think that's the unfortunate reality of mainstream centralized financial instruments. They can use everything, including their biases and beliefs about your ethnicity, to freeze the funds you have contributed for many years. You have the right to take action and seek legal advice regarding their freezing of your funds, which is happening solely for one reason that they are questioning. #BankingDiscrimination #FinancialRacism #FrozenFunds #EthnicBias #UnfreezeMyMoney #LegalAction #BankAccountLock #FinancialJustice #SystemicBias #EconomicRights #FundsHostage #BankingReform #DiscriminatoryPractices #FinancialInclusion #AccountFreeze #BankingWhileBrown #ClassAction #ConsumerProtection #DefundBias #BankTransparency
I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you want to reserve a room in a particular hotel, DO NOT search for the hotel name and call the number in one of the sponsored ads at the top of the search results.
More likely than not this is a reseller who will pretend you are talking directly to the hotel and charge you a LOT more than you would have paid the hotel directly.
Find the hotel website, confirm from the URL that you're on it, and call the number there.
1/2
#consumerProtection #scam
Major insurer taken to court over 'egregious' handling of storm claim
The corporate watchdog alleges delays by Hollard Insurance over a storm damage claim left a Victorian couple with no choice but to demolish their home.
Couple forced to demolish storm-hit home after insurer delays, ASIC alleges
The corporate watchdog alleges delays by Hollard Insurance over a storm damage claim left a Victorian couple with no choice but to demolish their home.
Warick's death benefit was cancelled months before he died. His family wants answers
By Michael Atkin
Australian Super is one of two super funds being sued by ASIC over the handling of death benefit claims. A First Nations family says a deceased family member was mistreated by the fund.
Consumers left footing the bill as gas companies see asset values dwindle
Faced with declining use of their assets, the firms that own Australia's gas pipelines are trying to shield themselves from the risks of their networks becoming stranded — and customers are paying the tab.
Why aren’t cellphone companies employing blocking technology for the multitude of scam calls coming in? Can guarantee it exists.
#canada #cdnpoli #telcomm #cellphone #consumerprotection
(As per usual, edits are for typos)
Door knockers on notice as watchdog has 90 days to respond to 'super complaint'
By Michael Atkin and Loretta Florance
The Consumer Action Law Centre has used its new powers to make a "super complaint" to demand a ban on door-to-door sales, an issue they say has harmed vulnerable people for decades.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-08/solar-door-to-door-accc-complaint/105094468
#UK #ecommerce #ConsumerProtection
'Sneaky fees that are estimated to cost consumers £2.2bn a year are to be banned from today under new consumer protection laws.
Businesses, including travel websites, ticket agencies and food delivery apps, will be required to include any mandatory fees in the headline price. Research has found these fees can be more than 25% of the product price.'
Smart meters are breeding confusion and broken trust, a watchdog says
By Daniel Mercer
They were billed as the intelligent key to some sort of energy utopia, but smart meters are breeding confusion and broken trust, a watchdog finds.
Stateline: Cities lead bans on algorithmic rent hikes as states lag behind. “Minneapolis on Thursday has become the fourth U.S. city to ban algorithmic rental price-fixing software, joining San Francisco, Philadelphia and Berkeley, California, in a growing wave of legislation aimed to protect renters from rental price-gouging. While momentum builds at the city level — with Portland, Oregon; […]
American Airlines Cuts JFK Moving Walkway — Because You Spend More When You Struggle - this is exactly what I mean when I point out that over the years business has become more and more predatory. All business. From subscriptions, limited ownership rights, right-to-repair, you name it. Corporations are after our $$, our data, and our lives. We exist only to feed the machine and provide labor to stoke corporate wealth. #PredatoryCapitalism #PredatoryBusiness #ConsumerProtection #ConsumerRights https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-cuts-jfk-moving-walkway-because-you-spend-more-when-you-struggle/
Here, this is a pretty brutal set of statements from the judge which just ordered for the CFPB:
https://bsky.app/profile/mjsdc.bsky.social/post/3llhoz4csk22b
Judge Amy Berman Jackson in the National #Treasury Employees v. #RussVought (acting director of CFPB) ruled that the attempt to dismantle #CFPB is likely unlawful, & the recent claims by the #Trump admin that the agency was still performing its statutorily mandated duties was "nothing more than window dressing."
As such she ordered a preliminary injunction.
#law #ConsumerProtection #AbuseOfPower #Trump
https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2025cv0381-87
![In sum, the Court cannot look away or the CFPB will be dissolved and dismantled completely in approximately thirty days, well before this lawsuit has come to its conclusion. For all of the reasons set forth above, the Court will GRANT [Dkt. # 10] plaintiffs' motion and issue a preliminary injunction that maintains the agency's existence until this case has been resolved on the merits, reinstating and preserving the agency's contracts, work force, data, and operational capacity, and protecting and facilitating the employees' ability to perform statutorily required activities. The Court is aware of the modifications the plaintiffs have made to their proposed order, as well as the objections lodged by the defendants to previous iterations of the proposed order, and it is mindful that its order must be sufficiently specific to be enforceable, while also broad enough to afford the agency and its leadership the discretion they are accorded under the statute when carrying out their regulatory, enforcement, and supervisory responsibilities.](https://s3.masto.ai/media_attachments/files/114/242/098/939/614/022/original/6844bc004d4f87fa.png "In sum, the Court cannot look away or the CFPB will be dissolved and dismantled completely in approximately thirty days, well before this lawsuit has come to its conclusion. For all of the reasons set forth above, the Court will GRANT [Dkt. # 10] plaintiffs' motion and issue a preliminary injunction that maintains the agency's existence until this case has been resolved on the merits, reinstating and preserving the agency's contracts, work force, data, and operational capacity, and protecting and facilitating the employees' ability to perform statutorily required activities. The Court is aware of the modifications the plaintiffs have made to their proposed order, as well as the objections lodged by the defendants to previous iterations of the proposed order, and it is mindful that its order must be sufficiently specific to be enforceable, while also broad enough to afford the agency and its leadership the discretion they are accorded under the statute when carrying out their regulatory, enforcement, and supervisory responsibilities.")
& 
bonafide
