CRL in the News

One of my favorite quotes comes from the 2000 political drama "The Contender." In it, the vice presidential nominee, Laine Hanson, explains her refusal to neither confirm nor deny the sexist smear campaign against her with one sentence: "Principles only mean something if you stick by them when they're inconvenient." Twenty-three years later, I find myself thinking about that line...

While acknowledging the Bureau’s earlier efforts to rein in high-cost overdraft fees, Nadine Chabrier, a Senior Policy Counsel with the Center for Responsible Lending says more must be done to protect consumers from other costly junk fees. “These charges wreak havoc on household budgets,” said Chabrier. “We applaud President Biden for highlighting their harm… We are encouraged that the consumer...

In comments submitted last spring, the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer advocacy group, praised the revamped procedural rules, saying they would strengthen "the ability of the agency to protect consumers and the rights of respondents subject to agency action." Allowing bifurcated proceedings, for example, mirrors how cases can be handled in federal court, promotes case law development and "saves...

It’s become more expensive to carry debt in recent months since the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates to try to get inflation under control. That may be contributing to the increase in credit card balances in a couple of ways, according to David Silberman at the Center for Responsible Lending. “As interest rates go up, the amount of...

A dozen advocacy groups, led by the Center for Responsible Lending, wrote to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in August, urging them to curb the deal over the amount TD collects in overdraft fees.

The Prison Policy Initiative, a criminal justice policy think tank, and the National Consumer Law Center, along with 27 other organizations, including the Center for Responsible Lending, and Southern Poverty Law Center, signed the letter. It explained that incarcerated people are often hit with fees for phone calls and messaging services, electronic monitoring and post-arrest diversion programs.

“Saying that people who are in hard financial straits need access to this kind of credit is sort of like giving a starving person rotten food,” Whitney Barkley-Denney, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, told The Intercept. “It makes them sicker than they were in the first place. People who borrow with payday loans find themselves facing...

“Student loan debt is both a product of the racial wealth gap and a tool that exacerbates racial inequality,” said Jaylon Herbin, director of federal campaigns at the Center for Responsible Lending.

At least three federal agencies have also taken action over the past two years to reduce junk fees and increase transparency. That includes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has ramped up its oversight of surprise overdraft and depositor fees charged by banks. The Center for Responsible Lending has hailed the move as "a big step" in highlighting the harms...

“Despite recent progress in addressing overdraft fees, the job is far from complete. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took a big step by banning surprise overdraft fees,” Nadine Chabrier, the Center for Responsible Lending’s senior policy counsel, said in a statement. “We are encouraged that the consumer bureau announced it will take additional steps, and we urge the bureau to...