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