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Category Archives: Consumer Law News

New Rule Will Give Some Consumers Free Access to Credit Scores

Published on July 19, 2011 by Robert A. Kraft

Columnist Pamela Yip, of the Dallas Morning News, wrote this week about a new federal rule that will allow certain consumers free access to their credit scores. Unfortunately, the rule applies mostly to people who have been denied credit, so you really don’t want this to happen to you. But if your credit is denied, [...]

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Texas Senate Approves Two Bills To Place Oversight On Payday Lending Industry

Published on May 24, 2011 by Robert A. Kraft

Senators took the plunge into payday lending rules Monday, approving two bills that bring some oversight to the largely unregulated industry in Texas.
Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, said the legislation represents a “very, very delicate compromise” between consumer groups and the payday and auto title lending industry.
The legislation by Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, would require more [...]

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Lawmakers to debate value of payday loans

Published on March 7, 2011 by Robert A. Kraft

The Texas Legislature is considering clamping down on payday loan companies,and closing a giant loophole that has allowed these business to continue operating as they did before the last “clapdown” law was passed. Here is an article from the Houston Chronicle that discusses the situation in some details:
Bills that would prohibit companies from charging fees [...]

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Dallas-Fort Worth Home Listings Rise 15 Percent in Past Year

Published on September 16, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

This is a great time to be shopping for a house in Dallas, but not such a great time to be trying to sell one. As reported by the Dallas Morning News, residential sales listings in Dallas have grown almost five percent in the past three months. Here are article excerpts:
The number of houses on [...]

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Consumer Lawsuits Against Bill Collectors Skyrocket

Published on July 6, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

McClatchy reports, “Since the recession hit in 2007, federal lawsuits filed under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act have more than doubled, while complaints about problem collectors have skyrocketed.” Attorney Sergei Lemberg, whose “firm has filed about 1,500 such lawsuits in the past three years,” said, “I think debt collectors have become more aggressive by [...]

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Fed Adopts Rules to Protect Credit Card Customers

Published on June 29, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

The Federal Reserve adopted new rules this month aimed at protecting credit card customers from getting hit by high late payment charges and other penalty fees. The Dallas Morning News ran a good article on the new rules, and here are excerpts:
The rules respond to public and congressional outrage over practices by credit card companies.
They bar [...]

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Underwater Foreclosures Growing in D-FW Area

Published on June 4, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

This recent headline in the Dallas Morning News wasn’t referring to foreclosures on underwater houses. The topic was foreclosures on houses where the owner was upside-down or “underwater” on the mortgage. In other words, the owner owed more on the mortgage than the house was worth on the open market. This is similar to having [...]

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Car Dealers Dodge Financing Oversight

Published on May 26, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

Auto dealers got a big break from Congress this week when the Senate voted to exclude them from the proposed new law creating a consumer finance agency. The vote was non-binding, but was by a large majority of 60-30, and is similar to an exemption in the House version of the finance bill. The exemption [...]

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Dallas-Fort Worth Residents Have Among the Highest Debt and Lowest Credit Scores

Published on May 17, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

Dallas residents apparently enjoy spending beyond their means more than most of the country does. At least that’s the appearance given by a recent survey of the 20 largest metropolitan areas done by the Experian credit bureau. As reported in the Dallas Morning News, people in the Dallas and Fort Worth area rank just below [...]

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Auto Repo Business Is Hurting In This Down Economy

Published on April 8, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

An article today about auto repossession caught my attention. It was in the Dallas Morning News, and made the point that this is a bad time for the vehicle recovery business. I had assumed that with so many people out of work and unable to make their car payments, the repo business would be booming. [...]

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More Than 10% of Texas Homeowners Behind on Mortgage Payments

Published on March 15, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

More than one in ten Texas homeowners with mortgages are behind in their payments, according to the Dallas Morning News. Texas’ mortgage delinquency rate is now just slightly behind the national average of 10.44 percent. Texas ranks 18th nationally among the states with the highest percentage of late home loans. The article states that “The number [...]

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Dallas-Fort Worth Foreclosure Rate May Be Artificially Low

Published on March 11, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

The Dallas Morning News recently ran an interesting and somewhat disturbing article about the decrease in local foreclosures in 2009. The good news is that the number of foreclosures dropped in 2009 from previous years. But the bad news is that this drop may have been artificially induced by strategies employed by financial institutions. Here [...]

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Tips for the Suddenly Unemployed

Published on March 10, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

As the national economy slowly recovers, jobs are lagging badly. People who have lost their jobs over the past year are still having a difficult time finding new employment. The McClatchy-Tribune News Service recently ran an article with tips for the unemployed. In the article was a list of Web sites that seem helpful.
The threat [...]

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Obama May Compromise on Consumer Agency to Pass Financial Regulation

Published on March 1, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

The Obama administration is no longer insisting on the creation of a stand-alone consumer protection agency as a central element of the plan to remake regulation of the financial system, according to an article in the Washington Post. The article is lengthy, but interesting and important. Here are the opening paragraphs:
In hopes of quick congressional [...]

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New Credit Card Rules Take Effect Today

Published on February 22, 2010 by Robert A. Kraft

As many people know, today is the effective date of the largest section of the new federal law regarding credit cards, and especially the parts governing what the credit card companies can do and say. This excellent page of official information is from the government Web site of the Federal Reserve:
The Federal Reserve’s new rules for [...]

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Consumer Alert: FinallyFast.com

Published on December 22, 2009 by Kathleen Munden

As many of you in the Dallas area may have seen lately, a company called “FinallyFast” is heavily advertising on television. Their product is a program that they promise will speed up your computer by clearing out the junk files that accumulate on computers over time.
You would think that as a bankruptcy lawyer, I would [...]

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Beware Credit Card Changes As You Charge Into Holiday Shopping

Published on December 10, 2009 by Robert A. Kraft

As Dallas bankruptcy lawyers we see far too many clients who have gotten into financial trouble by misusing their credit cards. Pamela Yip, the personal finance columnist for the Dallas Morning News had an excellent article recently on the hazards of using credit cards for holiday shopping. The gist of the article is that there [...]

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Fannie Mae Introduces “Deed For Lease” Program

Published on November 6, 2009 by Kathleen Munden

Home foreclosure is one of the biggest fears our Dallas and Fort Worth bankruptcy clients face. Potential foreclosure is often the triggering factor in causing people to contact a Dallas bankruptcy attorney. Now the federal government has taken a small step forward in helping homeowners attempt to avoid foreclosure.
In a bid to avoid an overload [...]

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Top 10 List of Consumer Complaints

Published on October 13, 2009 by Kathleen Munden

According to the National Association of Attorneys General, the top three topics for consumer complaints to state attorney general offices are debt collection, auto sales, and home repair/construction. Complaints regarding credit cards tied for fourth place with complaints regarding goods and services provided over the internet.
Complaints concerning predatory lending and mortgage practices were sixth, with [...]

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Pre-Paid Utility Meters Pose Danger to Consumer Rights

Published on October 9, 2009 by Kathleen Munden

Traditionally, utility service has been extended on credit, remained connected until a serious delinquency occurred, and would not be disconnected during severe weather or where elderly  or sick individuals were in the household. Pre-paid meters are now being introduced in several states, including Texas, and require cash up front to obtain and maintain service. When [...]

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