Table of Contents

FCC should prioritize protecting consumers from widescale nuisance and fraud facilitated through unwanted and illegal text messages
Advocates filed comments with the FCC urging the agency to take steps to protect consumers from unwanted and illegal text messages, including illegal telemarketing texts; fundraising, political, survey and similar types of messages; scam robotexts; and non-SMS text messaging.

FTC and DOJ must rein in fraudulent review brokers to protect consumers and honest businesses
Consumer Action and allies asked the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice to use their authority to crack down on reviews brokers, which sell fake reviews of products and services. The fraud results in significant economic harm to consumers and honest businesses and a deterioration of trust in online reviews.

Telemarketing Sales Rule should be strengthened even further to protect consumers from misconduct
Consumer Action joined a dozen partner organizations in submitting comments to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding two proposed sets of changes to the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), which protects consumers from telemarketing fraud. The signers encouraged additional changes that would, among other things, require advance notice to consumers when a free trial converts to a paid sale.

Advocates urge Congress to pass online kids’ safety reform
In a letter to Congress, coalition groups urged legislators to provide protections for kids and teens online. Advocates warn that the business model of the internet as we know it today isn’t healthy for children. Among their questionable practices, Big Tech companies prioritize continued engagement and data collection over taking offline breaks, encourage kids to share their sensitive data to get more “likes,” and expose young people to predators online.

Protect retirees and savers from conflicted investment advice
A broad coalition of leading worker, consumer and investor advocates has urged the Department of Labor (DOL) to quickly update and strengthen the rules governing retirement investment advice to help protect workers and retirees from harmful conflicts of interest. Conflicted retirement investment advice costs retirement savers tens of billions of dollars every year.

The system is broken: It’s time for income-driven repayment reform
A group of 104 diverse advocacy organizations sent a letter to the Biden administration, calling on U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to reform broken, dysfunctional income-driven repayment (IDR) programs with the creation of an IDR restoration project or waiver. While student loan cancellation under IDR has been possible since 2016, just 32 borrowers have ever successfully had their loans cancelled. At the same time, over 4.4 million borrowers have been in repayment for 20 years or longer, despite theoretically being able to access forgiveness via IDR.

Ensure that banks equitably and justly invest in our communities
A coalition of 60 groups wrote a letter urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to develop a strong rule requiring small business lenders to report on the race, ethnicity and gender of their borrowers, the neighborhoods where they lend, and what they charge for their loans. Members of the coalition have been advocating for small business data collection and transparency within the small business market for decades. Robust small business data collection through the Section 1071 rule will result in enhanced transparency, more responsible lending practices, targeted enforcement of fair lending laws, informed policymaking, healthier markets, and reduced racial and gender wealth gaps.

The CFPB must protect consumers from fraud in payment systems
Consumer Action was one of the 65 consumer, civil rights, faith, legal services and community groups that submitted comments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in response to its inquiry into certain business practices of six large technology companies operating payments systems in the United States. The groups urged the CFPB to require person-to-person (P2P) payment providers to protect consumers from fraud and errors and to work with the Federal Reserve Board to ensure protections are in place before the Fed launches its new FedNow P2P service.

Advocates ask the CFPB to bring back public consumer complaint narratives
Dozens of consumer, civil rights, community, housing and privacy groups urged the new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Rohit Chopra, to stop burying the complaint details (called narratives) in the agency’s consumer complaint database. Under its Trump-appointed director, Kathy Kraninger, the CFPB made it more difficult for consumers to access the most useful portion of the complaints. Burying the complaint narratives was one of many big gifts Kraninger gave to financial firms that long fought public display of the consumer-provided descriptions that reveal the unfair practices companies would rather keep hidden.

Boosting the FTC’s oversight ability through the Build Back Better Act
Consumer Action and 34 civil rights, civil liberties and consumer protection organizations joined in urging Congress to pass key provisions of the Build Back Better Act that will strengthen the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) power to halt discriminatory and abusive data practices. The bill provides $1 billion in funding for the Commission’s privacy and antitrust work and establishes an FTC bureau to address privacy, civil rights and data security issues.