Consumer loan laws

0:01- When you're dealing with things like loans, debt, credit, there are actually a lot of laws and regulations on the books that are meant to protect you, the consumer. But it's only going to be able to protect you, the consumer if you know about these laws and you know how to act on them.

0:16So I'm not gonna go into all of the detail of all of them, but I'll just give you a sense of the types of protections that are there and then where you might want to go if you find that you are somehow, someone you're dealing with is not following the letter or the spirit of the law.

0:31So just to say who do you go to, you go to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to figure out how can you lodge a complaint or file a complaint against some of these folks. Now, what could you actually file a complaint on? And this isn't going to be an exhaustive list, but there's the Fair Credit Billing Act, and I'm gonna read it from this paper here just to make sure I get it right.

0:53This is a federal law that makes sure that your creditors, the people you owe money to, mail out bills at least 14 days before payment is due. And the spirit of this law is you can imagine if someone just sent out a bill a day or two before the payment is due and then you didn't pay it and then you had to pay late fees or your interest rate went up, that doesn't seem so fair.

1:14So this is to make sure that you have enough notice to get the bill and then make the payment. If that's not happening, once again, you can go to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and lodge a complaint. There is the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This is, requires creditors to furnish accurate and complete information to borrowers.

1:36So not just a little bit here, there or not to have inaccuracies. And it also creates a mechanism where you can go to the credit or go to the credit bureaus and correct any information, misinformation that they might have on you. There's the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

1:55In the old days, you know, back in the Middle Ages, there was debtors prison where you, or actually even your children could go to jail for not paying your debts. That is definitely not, that is not allowed, but you're not allowed to threaten folks for not paying off debt.

2:10So threats, harassment or abuse are not allowed, and you should lodge a complaint about that. Once again, who do you lodge a complaint with? The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. There is also the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act.

2:27In another video, we talked about the Schumer Box, where they have to very clearly put out in a very consistent way, the terms, the interest rates, et cetera, the penalties, for credit card consumers. And this act goes further and it has a nice acronym, CARD, Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act on what are the policies of when can they raise interest rates, et cetera, et cetera.

2:53And then last but not least, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. And this is really the notion that you can't discriminate based on things like race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, or age. You can discriminate based on credit report, employment history, your income, because those are legitimate inputs on how likely you are to pay something back, how much of a risk you are, but it should not be based on any of these things that are essentially innately about you, which I just listed.

3:28So I'll leave you there. Always be on the lookout. Know that you are protected. If someone's doing something that looks genuinely unfair or shady, there's probably a law that prohibits that and you need to look it up and then lodge a complaint.