Updated: April 2019
Looking back at Consumer Action’s milestones
1971
- Opens in a San Francisco church basement under direction of founder Kay Pachtner
- Publishes “Consumer Action News” newsletter
- Establishes the consumer advice and assistance hotline
1972
- Pickets British Motors in San Francisco, resulting in the arrests of Consumer Action staffers, representation by the ACLU and British Motors’s unsuccessful $6 million lawsuit against the organization
1973
- Publishes “Break the Banks: A Shopper's Guide to Banking Services”
- Publishes “A Guide to Public Records,” demystifying city hall by showing San Franciscans how to access public information at local government offices
1974
- Publishes “Deceptive Packaging,” a scathing indictment of the California consumer affairs department
- Publishes “A Shopper’s Guide to Pharmacies” in the San Francisco Bay Area
- Launches successful campaign to require item pricing at supermarkets with campaign slogan “Price the rice!”
1975
- Holds “Lemonstration” in San Francisco to protest resale of defective autos
1976
- Helps Federal Trade Commission draft new consumer protection regulations, under a federal grant
- Releases “Optical Illusion,” an investigative study of the eye care industry, and urges an end to barriers to advertising prices for eye care services
- Protests Bank of America’s ads for “low interest” car loans as misleading, causing bank to withdraw ads, reimburse customers and pay a penalty to the city of San Francisco
- Publishes “Consumer Action’s Auto Insurance Guide,” California’s first shopper’s guide to auto insurance, and on basis of findings, calls for industry reform
1978
- Releases “How to Complain” guide
- Publishes “A Guide to Small Claims Court”
1980
- Welcomes Ken McEldowney back to Consumer Action, now as its executive director
1984
- Publishes first annual Credit Card Survey
- Publishes first annual “Consumer Services Guide” (now a website: www.consumerservicesguide.org)
1988
- Receives first of many court awards (Wells Fargo class action settlement)
- Establishes Banking Information Project to inform low-income, senior and non-English speaking consumers about banking services
1989
- Establishes community-based organization (CBO) network for distributing educational materials
- Creates the Telephone Information Project (TIP) with grant from the California Public Utilities Commission
- Testifies before US House Banking Committee on the need for federal Truth in Savings Act (became law 1991)
1990
- First publishes 300-page Telephone Users Guide with grant from the California Public Utilities Commission
- Publishes “Why Use a Bank Account?” in English, Spanish and Chinese
- Testifies before the US House Energy and Commerce Committee on “900” phone number ripoffs
- Rallies national attention to pass laws regulating unsafe children’s car seats and providing better nutrition labeling
- Advocates for “Caller ID” blocking to protect consumer privacy
1991
- Co-sponsors bill with California Assemblymember Jackie Speier to reduce bank fees
- Establishes the Lead Poisoning Prevention Project (later known as the Healthy Children Organizing Project)
- Publishes Telephone Information Project (TIP) materials in seven languages
- Calls public attention to telephone banking privacy threats
- Publishes “Your Guide to Phone Service”
1992
- Joins US Dept. of Consumer Affairs and Sprint in a project to educate limited-English speakers about phone services
- Selected by California Public Utilities Commission to operate Telecommunications Education Trust (TET) repository
- Prevails in a lawsuit against Bank of America for forcing binding mandatory arbitration on existing customers (Badie vs. Bank of America)
1993
- Launches the Credit & Finance Advocacy Project
- Establishes the San Francisco Foundation’s Bank of America Consumer Education Fund (BACEF) Resource Center, a repository for BACEF-funded materials
- Initiates campaign to more effectively regulate cable TV rates
- Advocates nationally for increased enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)
1994
- Opens Los Angeles Office
- Establishes first national corporate consumer education partnerships (American Express, AT&T, Sprint and Visa) to produce and distribute free, multilingual educational materials in five languages
- Publishes “Teaching Money Management,” a catalogue of financial education materials, under a grant from the San Francisco Foundation’s Bank of America Consumer Education Fund (BACEF)
- Begins campaigns to prohibit credit card marketing on college campuses, regulate the rent-to-own industry and fight pre-emption of state law by national banks
1995
- Protests “Lemon Laundering” (resale of potentially dangerous used cars) at GM dealerships
- Debuts first online library of materials via HandsNet
- Challenges electric deregulation
- Credited with passage of San Francisco law to protect renters from lead poisoning
1996
- Publishes Prepaid Phone Card and Free Checking Account surveys
1997
- Devises formal multilingual, multicultural community education model
- Launches national HMO education campaign in partnership with PacifiCare
- Publishes the “EBT/EFT Update,” a publication to educate consumers on electronic benefits, in partnership with the National Consumer Law Center, the National Urban League and NationsBank
- Launches website Consumer-Action.org, a multilingual online consumer resource
1999
- Receives $2 million grant from HUD to conduct a nationwide multilingual fair housing public education campaign
- Publishes the California Home Electricity Survey
2000
- Publishes Online Banking Survey
2001
- Establishes MoneyWi$e financial empowerment program in partnership with Capital One
- Prevails in an lawsuit against AT&T to block its binding mandatory arbitration clause. Consumer Action employee Darcy Ting becomes named plaintiff in the class action suit (Ting vs. AT&T) filed in federal court
- Receives Excellence in Consumer Education Award from the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators (NACAA)
2002
- Conducts first MoneyWi$e train-the-trainer events in California, Florida, New York and Virginia (trainings continue to present)
- Launches Money-Wise.org, website of the MoneyWi$e Project
2003
- Advocates against predatory “bounce protection” service on checking accounts
2004
- Opens DC office
2006
- Begins “e-advocacy” services providing “Take Action” alerts to build grassroots support for our campaigns and to help consumers make their voices heard
2007
- Joins Americans for Fairness in Lending (AFFIL) to raise awareness about predatory lending
- Testifies on the need for credit card consumer protections before the US House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit
2008
- Testifies in support of the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights before the US House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit
- Helps pass the historic Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act
- Launches sister websites Managing-Money.org, Privacy-Information.org, Insurance-Education.org and Housing-Information.org
2009
- Attends the signing of the CARD Act by President Obama at the White House
- Becomes a founding member of Americans for Financial Reform (AFR)
- Testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in support of the Expedited CARD Reform for Consumers Act of 2009 (H.R. 3639)
2010
- Rallies grassroots support to pass health reform (coalition effort)
- Helps pass Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (coalition effort)
- Launches Consumer Action’s National Financial Empowerment conference in Chicago, IL, an annual event for our community-based partners to share best practices for promoting financial empowerment
- Publishes “Consumer Action INSIDER” monthly e-newsletter
- Receives $1 million grant from HUD to conduct a nationwide multilingual fair housing public education campaign
2011
- Launches WirelessEd website (www.wirelessed.org)
- Chairs consumer group committee to advise the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on complaint handling
- Celebrates 40th Anniversary in Washington, DC