• What people are saying
• Consumer Action celebrates 53rd anniversary
• Energized for a new round of PG&E assistance program outreach
• Warranties-related project produces multiple consumer resources
• Coalition Efforts
• CFPB Watch
• Class Action Database: Patreon patrons’ privacy at issue in settled lawsuit
• About Consumer Action

What people are saying

"I attended today’s webinar on Fairness, Transparency and Accountability in Credit and Consumer Reporting, and it was phenomenal!...Thank you once again…for offering such excellent training opportunities. They truly help me better serve my clients.” —Jill Kimak, Outreach Manager and HUD-Certified Financial Fitness Coach, H.O.M.E. DuPage, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois  (view the "Fairness, Transparency and Accountability in Credit and Consumer Reporting" convening recording here)

Consumer Action celebrates 53rd anniversary

By Anna Flores

Last month, on Nov. 13, Consumer Action celebrated 53 years of educating and advocating for consumers. The day’s events included a virtual convening followed, that evening, by an awards ceremony and reception in Washington, D.C., at the AT&T Forum for Technology, Entertainment and Policy. This year’s anniversary theme was “Empowering Consumers: Fairness, Transparency, Accountability.” 

The convening, whose focus was on fairness, transparency and accountability in credit and consumer reports, was moderated by Chi Chi Wu, senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center and an expert on consumer credit and fair credit reporting issues. Our esteemed panelists were Chuck Bell, advocacy programs director for Consumer Reports; Eric Dunn, director of litigation for the National Housing Law Project; and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau senior counsel Amy Quester and Lanique Eubanks. In case you missed it, the 90-minute "Fairness, transparency and accountability in credit and consumer reports” webinar is available for viewing on Consumer Action’s YouTube Channel. 

That evening, we hosted more than 150 colleagues and supporters for our annual awards ceremony and anniversary reception. Our 2024 Consumer Excellence Awards and Special Recognition Awards were presented to the following honorees:

Consumer Excellence and Special Recognition awards in place before the ceremony

Consumer Excellence Awards

Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Consumer Protection

National Consumer Law Center

Prince George’s Community College Financial Empowerment Center 

Special Recognition Awards

Mark Espinoza, Senior Director for Public Affairs, Walmart

Brian Rothery, Vice President of Government and Public Affairs, Enterprise Mobility

 

Consumer Action’s executive director, Anna Flores, and our board president, Sue Rogan, join awardees after the ceremony (Left to right: Sue Rogan, CASH Campaign of Maryland; Brian Rothery, Enterprise Mobility; Erin Archuleta, Block; Heath Carelock, PGCC Financial Empowerment Center; Anna Flores, Consumer Action; Sam Levine, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection; Victoria Saunders, PGCC Financial Empowerment Center; and Mark Espinoza, Walmart)

The awards reception and a same-day virtual convening are Consumer Action’s only annual fundraising events. Many thanks to the host committee members, sponsors (listed below), honorees, presenters, and attendees for making this year’s events a success. We are also grateful to AT&T for providing the venue for the reception. 

We look forward to celebrating our 54th anniversary with you next year!

2024 Virtual Convening

Guardian Sponsor

Bank of America

Amazon

Champion

Wells Fargo

53rd Consumer Excellence Awards Ceremony and Reception

Presenting Sponsor

Square

Cash App

Leadership Circle

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Amazon

Bank of America

Guardian

Enterprise Mobility

Underwriter

Verizon

Association for Accessible Medicines

Donor

American Express

Walmart

Defender

Comcast NBCUniversal

Benefactor: 1-800-Contacts; FICO; National Beer Wholesalers Association

Champion: Jason Alderman; USP (U.S. Pharmacopeia); Wells Fargo

Patron: David A. Balto; Backus Consulting; Cuneo Gilbert & Deluca; FLEX; Oportun; Sports Fans Coalition; Vision 360

Special Friend: Stephen & Susan Brobeck; John Goodman; Benjamin Horne; Janeen Marquardt; Michelle Rafeld; TrueStage

Energized for a new round of PG&E assistance program outreach

By Monica Steinisch

Consumer Action has just been awarded a new grant by PG&E—our third since 2022. These rounds of funding from California’s largest gas and electricity provider support education and outreach work aimed at increasing awareness of and enrollment in a variety of PG&E financial assistance programs that make it easier for low-income households to maintain utility service. 

Energy poverty—the inability to pay household energy bills—can be the result of high energy costs, low income and poor energy efficiency. Millions of American households regularly struggle to pay their energy bill in full. Yet many eligible consumers never apply for assistance programs because they are unaware of them or mistakenly assume they do not qualify. We’ll be doing our best to close the gap between households that are eligible and households that are enrolled. 

Over the coming 12 months, we’ll highlight four of the company’s programs: 

California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE)/Family Electric Rate Assistance (FERA): The CARE program provides a discount of at least 20% on gas and electricity, while the FERA program provides a discount of 18% on electricity only. 

Budget Billing: Eliminate big spikes in monthly energy bills due to seasonal changes by averaging out your annual energy costs. Predictable bills are more manageable and help keep your budget on track. 

Energy Savings Assistance (ESA): With ESA, eligible homeowners and renters can get no-cost energy-efficient home upgrades (like new appliances, insulation, LED light bulbs, etc.), resulting in greater energy efficiency and reduced energy bills. 

Medical Baseline Program: Customers with qualifying medical conditions can get an ongoing monthly energy discount or extra notifications in advance of a Public Safety Power Shutoff.

Visit Consumer Action's “Save Money and Energy” project page for more information about the various assistance programs and links to the program applications.

Under the project, we’ll be sharing monthly communications in which we highlight one or more of the four assistance programs. We hope you’ll find the information useful, for yourself and for your clients and community.

We’ll also conduct six in-person workshops in areas of California that PG&E serves, providing information and assistance in English, Spanish and Chinese. While we will be targeting all hard-to-reach customers in areas where bills are high and resources are limited, we’ll be making a special effort to reach seniors. Throughout the project, Consumer Action will collaborate with community-based organizations (CBOs) to determine the locations and dates of the events.

For readers outside of PG&E's service area, we recommend that you ask your utility company about assistance programs, or that you get in touch with your state’s utility regulator to learn about local energy assistance programs.

Warranties-related project produces multiple consumer resources

By Monica Steinisch

Consumer Action just completed, at the end of October, a project focused on smartphone, computer and tablet owners’ warranty rights. The work was funded by a grant from the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment.

Launched mid-2023, the effort began with an online survey to learn how aware of and satisfied with device manufacturers’ warranties consumers are. We published the survey results, highlighting key findings, in April 2024.

Ultimately, the project produced multiple consumer resources—all available to consumers and community educators at no charge: 

Computer, tablet and smartphone warranties: Understanding and exercising your rights: This downloadable guide, available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean, explains how warranties for these types of products work, why extended warranties and insurance aren't always a good idea, your warranty rights under the law, how to file a claim, and what to do if you're dissatisfied with how your claim is handled.

Stay Connected: Helping consumers understand smartphone/computer warranty rights: In this train-the-trainer webinar, we learn from guest presenter Elliot Conn, founder and principal of the law firm Conn Law, PC, about warranty laws and the products they cover and about warranty rights and how to assert them. We also learn from Nathan Proctor, senior director of U.S. PIRG’s Right to Repair campaign, about the movement to expand repair rights across the country, including a discussion of right-to-repair laws passed in California, Colorado, Minnesota, New York and Oregon. (Read more about the webinar here.)

Computer, tablet and smartphone warranties: What you need to know: This brief video, also available in five languages, helps viewers understand and assert their consumer warranty rights when dealing with defective or malfunctioning devices and make informed choices about optional extended warranties and device insurance. 

"Most consumers today own at least one smartphone, tablet or computer, and many households own multiples—indicative of just how dependent we are on these costly devices,” said Anna Flores, Consumer Action’s executive director. “We’re grateful to the Rose Foundation for giving us the opportunity to produce resources that virtually every consumer can benefit from, whether their phone or computer has gone on the fritz prematurely, or they have to make a split-second decision about buying an extended warranty at checkout.”

Coalition Efforts

By Monica Steinisch

Consumer Action and its allies recently called on policymakers and regulators about these important issues:

Disaster relief for homeowners lacking formal title. More than 80 organizations signed on to a letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requesting that the agency require states and localities receiving Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds to accept affidavits of ownership from heirs’ property owners (descendants of a deceased person who jointly own property without conventional title to the property) applying for repair, reconstruction and relocation funds after a natural disaster. With natural disasters growing in frequency and intensity, the cost of these catastrophic events threatens to overwhelm low- and moderate-income households without traditional forms of title documentation. Many communities, particularly in territories such as Puerto Rico and states in the U.S. Southeast, have historically transferred home title informally. Absent a federal requirement to recognize heirs’ property owners, many states and local governments will continue to frustrate relief efforts, leaving thousands of families ineligible for disaster relief. Requiring states to accept affidavits of ownership would also comport with HUD's responsibility to affirmatively further fair housing, given the disproportionate number of Black and Brown communities who have and will continue to experience home loss due to informal title. Absent a HUD requirement to accept affidavits of ownership, and the release of a HUD statement of this policy, HUD should require that grantees develop and implement alternative measures to ensure that heirs’ property owners and others without traditional forms of title documentation can establish ownership for purposes of receiving assistance. Read the letter here.

Insufficient affordable housing support from FHLBanks. The Coalition for Federal Home Loan Bank Reform (CFR) published a letter to congressional leaders in which coalition members, including Consumer Action, urged Congress to require the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBanks) to contribute at least 30% of their net income each year to support community development, including at least 20% to Affordable Housing Programs (AHP). Congress chartered the FHLBank System in 1932 to support fair and affordable housing, and in 1989, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act added the AHP to the FHLBanks’ duties, mandating that each Bank dedicate 10% of its net income to these programs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the FHLBank System receives $7.3 billion in indirect government subsidies each year. In 2023, the banks made a record $6.7 billion in government-subsidized profits—evidence that could very feasibly contribute more toward helping the millions of U.S. families struggling to afford housing. Yet, the FHLB Presidents stated that they would not increase AHP contributions unless directed by Congress. Congressional action to mandate increased contributions would spur housing construction and help support communities across the nation. Read the letter here.

CFPB Watch

By Ruth Susswein

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) warned companies that rely on background check reports from third parties and AI-based employment scores that the same employee protections that apply to the use of traditional credit reports in the employment screening or assessment process also apply to the use of these other reports. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), that means employers must:

• Obtain employee consent before running a background check or ordering other third-party consumer reports;
• Disclose to employees information about any data that led to an adverse (negative) action—for example, a demotion, denial of a promotion, or dismissal; and
• Allow employees to dispute inaccurate information found in reports.

Employee monitoring based on third-party data is done by some employers these days to track workers’ behavior. For instance, the CFPB says, some employees are required to install apps on their phones that monitor their job conduct (such as their driving habits), or they have their tasks (such as email activity) analyzed by automated systems. In other cases, workers are unaware that they are under surveillance, says the Bureau. The data gathered may be used by employers to issue warnings, decide pay levels, or determine job reassignments.

The CFPB advised employers who use background checks and other third-party reports to get employee consent first, make the required employee disclosures if the data results in an adverse action, and correct or delete any erroneous or unverified information the employee disputes. 

A note: As for the future of the CFPB, we are in somewhat familiar but still uncharted territory since Donald Trump won the presidential election. Trump has never been a fan of the consumer bureau. In fact, he hired Rep. Mick Mulvaney in 2017 to head the CFPB and dismantle the agency from within. It took extraordinary efforts by consumer advocates, and some laws, like the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, to save the agency from extermination. We don’t know what the future will bring for this and other federal agencies, but we can assure you that we will defend the CFPB and keep you apprised of any future changes.

A call for better remittances

Meanwhile, the CFPB is considering consumer advocates’ call to reduce money transfer costs, primarily by improving disclosures. Advocates have asked the CFPB to amend the Remittance Rule to require that: 

• The total cost of a remittance be disclosed upfront (including all fees, taxes and exchange rates); and
• The total amount to be received be prominently disclosed (after deducting all fees, taxes, and including the exchange rate).

These changes would improve consumers’ understanding of the costs of sending money overseas, encourage competition if all prices were clearly disclosed, and likely reduce remittance costs.

OOPS by Navy Federal

Navy Federal Credit Union collected nearly $1 billion in surprise overdraft fees from 2017 to 2021, according to the CFPB. 

Through its “Optional Overdraft Protection Service,” known as “OOPS,” credit union members were charged $20 for certain ATM withdrawals and debit card purchases—even when there was enough money in their account at the time of the transaction to cover the amount. 

Customers were also charged overdraft fees when they tried to use money they received through payment apps like Zelle, PayPal and Cash App. The CFPB says Navy Federal showed the funds as available to spend, however, payments received after 10 a.m. (Eastern) were not actually credited to the account and made available until the following day, prompting the surprise fee.

The consumer bureau ordered Navy Federal to refund $80 million to customers, pay a $15 million penalty to the CFPB’s victims relief fund, and stop charging illegal overdraft fees.

Class Action Database: Patreon patrons’ privacy at issue in settled lawsuit

By Monica Steinisch

Among recent settlements added to the Consumer Action Class Action Database is the $7.5 million Beyond Meat, a company that makes plant-based meat substitutes, will pay to settle allegations that the company made false, inflated claims about the protein content and quality of its products. If you purchased Beyond Meat products between May 31, 2018, and Aug. 14, 2024, you may be eligible for payment. The deadline for claims is April 14, 2025. 

Of note is the $7.25 million settlement that Patreon, a crowdfunding platform for artists and creators, agreed to pay to resolve allegations that the company disclosed the identities and video-viewing preferences of its users to Facebook without their consent, a violation of the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA). If, between April 1, 2016, and Sept. 23, 2024, you requested or obtained video content on the Patreon website and, at that time, you had both a Facebook account and a Patreon account, you may be eligible for payment. The deadline for claims is Jan. 1, 2025.

The VPPA is a federal law that prohibits video rental or streaming services from sharing customers’ personally identifiable information (PII)—name, address, phone number, etc.,— and the specific videos they have accessed with third parties without the consumer’s consent.

Since April, we’ve posted five settlements for class action lawsuits alleging VPPA violations: Star Tribune Media, Bleacher Report, BuzzFeed, Tubi, and now Patreon. The sharp increase in VPPA violation cases that began is 2022 is the result of companies that provide video through their websites also using Meta or Google Pixels—third-party tools that track website users’ activity. 

About Consumer Action

[Staff] [Annual Reports] [How to Donate]

Consumer Action is a nonprofit organization that has championed the rights of underrepresented consumers nationwide since 1971. Throughout its history, the organization has dedicated its resources to promoting financial and consumer literacy and advocating for consumer rights both in the media and before lawmakers to promote economic justice for all. With the resources and infrastructure to reach millions of consumers, Consumer Action is one of the most recognized, effective and trusted consumer organizations in the nation.

Consumer education. To empower consumers to assert their rights in the marketplace, Consumer Action provides a range of educational resources. The organization’s extensive library of free publications offers in-depth information on many topics related to personal money management, housing, insurance and privacy. At Consumer-Action.org, visitors have instant access to important consumer news, downloadable materials, an online “help desk,” the Take Action advocacy database, and more. Our in-language media outreach allows us to share scam alerts and other timely consumer news with a wide non-English-speaking audience.

Community outreach. With a special focus on serving low- and moderate-income and limited-English-speaking consumers, Consumer Action maintains strong ties to a national network of more than 6,500 community-based organizations. Outreach services include in-person and web-based training and dissemination of financial and consumer education materials in many languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese. Consumer Action’s network is the largest and most diverse of its kind.

Advocacy. Consumer Action is deeply committed to ensuring that underrepresented consumers are represented in the national media and in front of lawmakers. The organization promotes pro-consumer policy, regulation and legislation by taking positions on dozens of bills at the state and national levels and submitting comments and testimony on a host of consumer protection issues. Additionally, its diverse staff provides the media with expert commentary on key consumer issues supported by solid data and victim testimony.