Reverse mortgage ads are found on television, radio, in print, and on the internet, and many ads feature celebrity spokespeople discussing the benefits of reverse mortgages without mentioning risks. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau looked closely at dozens of advertisements and met with older homeowners to learn about their impressions of reverse mortgage ads. Today, we’re releasing a consumer advisory and report on what we found.
Here are three things to remember when you see a reverse mortgage advertisement:
· A reverse mortgage is a home loan , not a government benefit.
· Reverse mortgage ads don’t always tell the whole story.
· Without a good plan, you could outlive your loan money
We found that reverse mortgage advertisements may leave older homeowners with the false impression that reverse mortgage loans are a risk-free solution to financial gaps in retirement.
Check out our report on reverse mortgage advertising to learn more:
Report
A closer look at reverse mortgage advertising
http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201506_cfpb_a-closer-look-at-reverse-mortgage-advertising.pdf
Blog
Consumer Advisory: Don’t be misled by reverse mortgage advertising
http://www.consumerfinance.gov/blog/consumer-advisory-dont-be-misled-by-reverse-mortgage-advertising/
Consumer Advisory pdf
Consumer Advisory: Don’t be misled by reverse mortgage advertising
http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201506_cfpb_consumer-advisory-dont-be-misled-by-reverse-mortgage-advertising.pdf
If you have questions about this report, please contact James Miner at james.miner@cfpb.gov
Thanks!
Naomi Karp, JD
Senior Policy Analyst
Office for Older Americans – Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
202-435-7954
naomi.karp@cfpb.gov
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FTC Reaffirms Consumer Right to Enforce Warranty Protections in Court: Boston Globe From ConsumerAdvocates.org (National Association of Consumer Advocates): I've been working for a year or so as a lead volunteer on the Education Committee for the National Association of Consumer Advocates. We're working to develop a comprehensive plan and curriculum for effective continuing legal education courses, so that we can have more attorneys representing more consumers with problems in the marketplace.
The corporate takeover of the US Supreme Court since 1980 has been breathtaking in its scope, producing decisions that ALWAYS increase corporate power at the expense of real people and that include bizarre results that can only be understood if you agree that working people -- regular Americans -- are second class citizens in their own country, with the wealthy and the incorporated entitled to all the first-class seats. Disgusting. The insurance industry is the 600 pound gorilla of lobbying, throwing its weight around Salem and Washington DC in a constant drive for greater profits. In Oregon, the insurance industry is, for all intents and purposes, completely unregulated -- the Insurance Commission is less of a regulator than a handmaiden to the industry, allowing it to claim to be regulated while in actuality doing nothing to help Oregonians deal with uncaring insurance companies. The solution is to bring insurance under the Oregon Unlawful Trade Practices Act, just like EVERY other business in Oregon. Call your representatives in Salem and tell them that the insurance industry shouldn't have a unique "get out of jail free" immunity that lets them mistreat people and profit from their misery. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-07/how-an-insurer-is-taking-money-from-the-fan-beaten-at-dodger-stadium Next week, I'm giving a class to the Consumer Law section of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association on what consumers can do when they've been ripped off by an auto repair shop. We need more reporters to be our modern Paul Reveres and to warn us about the anti-American rule being imposed on us with forced arbitration clauses hidden in "take it or leave it" contracts where you have no say and no choice. Full story at: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/arbitration-656044-arbitrator-lindemann.html I got a disgusting pitch in the email the other day, asking me to guide veterans to the website for this outfit that buys up guaranteed payment streams at a big discount, essentially suckering people who need those payment streams over a lifetime out of their rights to payment in return for fast cash now. Maybe the worst part is the focus on veterans, since veterans' retirement pay and benefits are protected from garnishment, but a big lump sum from some scammy lender is not. In other words, if you sign away your retirement pay or VA benefits to this outfit for ready cash now, when you get the check from them, it will NOT be exempt from garnishment the way your pay or benefits were. And since people willing to trade lifetime benefits for cash now are usually in financial trouble -- or soon will be -- that matters a LOT. I'll give the pitch below so you can see how scammy these people are, but I'll delete their name and URL because I don't want to lead any veterans to them -- quite the contrary. I'm reaching out to you from [Scammy.org], a site dedicated to providing essential information on pensions and annuities. Today we give thanks to all of the brave men and women veterans who serve our country. The only question I have is how these people sleep at night when their entire job is separating the gullible and the desperate from a secure, guaranteed, garnishment proof stream of income and profiting from doing so.
With Your Help, NCLC is Fighting Robocalls to Cell Phones The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its long-awaited report on forced arbitration this week. The report reinforces the conclusions of AFJ’s short documentary, Lost in the Fine Print: Forced arbitration is a bad deal for consumers, depriving them of the chance to stand up for their rights in court. Sign the petition to stop forced arbitration today! Did you know that Wall Street has found a way to cheat, steal, and defraud Americans without ever being held accountable for their actions? It’s called forced arbitration. Buried in the fine print of many bank and credit terms of service are dangerous forced arbitration clauses that kick cheated consumers out of court and instead funnel them into a secretive dispute mill rigged in favor of Big Banks and predatory lenders. With forced arbitration, corporations have granted themselves a license to steal and evade the law. And they are getting away with it. But with your help, this can be stopped. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) can revoke corporations’ license to steal by stopping the abusive practice of forced arbitration. Join us in telling the CFPB to put Americans’ financial security above Wall Street profits and stop forced arbitration. Sign the petition to the CFPB today! Petition: https://www.change.org/p/revoke-corporations-license-to-steal-stop-forced-arbitration 777 6th Street NW, Suite 200 | Washington, DC 20001 | 202-965-3500 From Rep. Williamson: Today, the Oregon Senate passed HB 2700—the class action accountability bill— by a vote of 17-13. That means the bill is now headed to Governor Kate Brown’s desk for her signature. Thanks to your support and the grassroots advocacy of hundreds of other Oregonians, the Legislature voted to close the loophole that allows at-fault corporations to avoid paying the full penalty ordered by a court when they injure or defraud someone. Because of you, big corporations will no longer be able to duck their responsibilities and avoid paying millions in penalties that they owe Oregon consumers. I was proud to co-sponsor this bill with my colleague Representative Tobias Read. We are grateful to the 50 courageous legislators in the House and Senate who joined us in voting for HB 2700. These men and women stood up to tough corporate pressure and did the right thing for Oregon families and consumers. You can thank these pro-consumer legislators by signing our card today. When Governor Brown signs HB 2700 into law, our state will finally stop letting corporations who injured or ripped off Oregonians off the hook. In the years ahead, remaining class action funds will go to Legal Aid of Oregon to provide services to needy citizens who cannot afford private lawyers and to appropriate charities designated by the judge in each case. We hear a lot about elected officials when they disappoint us. I think it’s also important to recognize committed public servants when they do the right thing. . . . Sincerely, /s/ Representative Jennifer Williamson
Oregon PEN is published by the Oregon Public Empowerment Network LLC, a private "B" Company formed not just to publish Oregon PEN, but also to devote all proceeds above expenses to the support of groups who meet critical needs in Oregon and who are making Oregon better.
One of the most difficult things I do is explain to people that I can no longer help them, although I could have helped them easily . . . if they had come to me in time. This happens all the time in debt lawsuits where someone sues you and serves you with a summons for a debt you don't (think you) owe. I think the problem is, we learn a lot of things in life, but so far as I know, nobody in high school teaches you how to deal with the legal system (except to hope that you don't get arrested in your youthful exuberance). There's way too many possible situations to cover in detail, so let me boil it down for you into one simple, fail-safe rule: If you get a letter FROM a lawyer or a summons or threatening letter from a court or government agency, call a real, licensed attorney and ask how to respond. If you instead try to take a crash course on Internet Law School or Facebook Law School or wait until you realize you are in over your head, you may easily wait yourself into a much more expensive or even dangerous class of problem. If you can't afford a complete consultation with an attorney, call the Oregon State Bar Lawyer Referral Service at 800-42-7636; they offer brief (1/2 hour or so) consults for just $35. Like bullies and illnesses, lawsuits can be ignored, but they won’t go away. Denise Norton learned this valuable lesson the hard way this week when she found out that a lawsuit she has tried to ignore could wind up costing Norton her North Seattle home. . . . Right now, Oregon is one of only two states in the nation that returns class action windfalls -- unclaimed damages -- to corporations found liable for wrongdoing by a judge or jury.
So, today, Oregon law lets corporations who injured or ripped off workers keep part of the judgment they were ordered to pay. HB 2700 closes this outrageous loophole in Oregon law that allows unclaimed funds remaining in class action settlements to be returned to corporations who were found guilty of wrongdoing. Under HB 2700, unclaimed class action penalties would go to Legal Aid of Oregon to provide services to needy citizens who cannot afford private lawyers and other appropriate charities as designated by the judge in the case -- NOT back to the companies whose wrongdoing required a lawsuit to fix in the first place! SIGN THE PETITION IN FAVOR OF HB 2700: http://jenniferfororegon.com/petition/
Owners (and especially dealers) may not always know their recalled vehicle still needs to be repaired. NHTSA's new search tool lets you enter a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) to quickly learn if a specific vehicle has not been repaired as part of a safety recall in the last 15 years. Don't buy ANY used car from ANYONE without checking for this first! https://vinrcl.safercar.gov/vin/ One of the worst things about a problem is when people wrongly think it has been solved. Like lead exposure. Most people forgot about lead once the federal law required filling stations to stop dispensing leaded gasoline for cars.
But we've never stopped using lead. The biggest source of new lead contamination is "general aviation" -- small planes use the most, such as at airports like Hillsboro airport, one of Oregon's busiest. It's owned and run by the Port of Portland. All over Oregon, small planes use leaded gasoline, which they then spray into the atmosphere with every flight. It's invisible, but potent. In other words, Oregonians tax ourselves so that small plane pilots can use fuel that causes a horrifically damaging poison to get into our air, food, and water. It never goes away, and it winds up in our kids' bloodstream and causes irreversible brain damage. There is NO SAFE LEVEL OF LEAD exposure. And when children are exposed, it changes their lives dramatically, for the worse: they are more likely to have problems with executive function (decision making, impulse control). In other words, children exposed to lead are the most likely to drop out, get arrested, get pregnant, and just generally do the costly, stupid things we say we want them to avoid. They can't help it -- we poisoned them, and they are impaired as a result. And then there's all the lead that children are exposed to simply because lead is a persistent toxin just as it is, in the dust that's everywhere. It doesn't break down, it doesn't become fixed, it just sits there, waiting to be picked up on someone's shoe or blown into the air with other dust particles, and then onto your food or carpet. And in households where there was lead paint used, you can get regular exposure from older windows (most often) or, worse, from improper paint removal practices. The research is clear and overwhelming. We spend far more money on the negative consequences of lead exposure than we would have to spend if we had a crash program to "Get the lead out of Oregon." If you're a parent, particularly a low-income parent living in older housing (pre-1978), make sure you have your children and home tested for lead exposure. Give what you can to the Lead Safe America Foundation. And ask all your elected officials why it's OK for pilots to spray poison on unsuspecting children and families when there are lead-free alternatives out there. The time for study is over. It's time to act. The damage we cause today costs us for decades. The savings we can realize today by investing in getting the lead out will pay us back even longer. The claim process in the BP/ARCO class action over illegal debit card charges has opened!
Here's the website: https://www.debitcardclassaction.com// If you are in the class (see below), you are entitled to $200, less whatever fees and costs the court assigns to class members. (The maximum requested for fees and costs is 20 percent or $40 per class member.) Roughly 500,000 class members whose records were recovered during the case will get a direct notice mailing. Those class members will get an "opt-out" claim notice -- that means if they do nothing, they will eventually get a claim check. But not all class members will be found that way -- so, if you are a class member who did not get a mailing, you can also opt in and make your claim using the website. You are a class member if you 1) You bought gas at an Oregon ARCO or AM/PM filling station any time between Jan 1, 2011, and Aug 30, 2013, and 2) You paid with a debit card, and 3) You paid a debit card fee. If you don't claim your money, it goes back to the very businesses who wrongfully charged consumers more for gas than the posted price, violating Oregon law. So spread the word, make sure everyone who buys gas with a debit card checks out the site and makes a claim if they are a class member. LINK TO OLDER POST ON WHY WE NEED ROBUST CLASS ACTION RULES If you are having suicidal thoughts, talking to someone may help. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has trained counselors available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Call (800) 273-TALK (8255).
You can also call 911 or visit your local hospital's emergency room if you believe you are a danger to yourself. Another good source is the NAMI HelpLine, an information and referral service which can be reached by calling 1 (800) 950-NAMI (6264), Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.- 6 p.m., EST or by email at info@nami.org As for your loans, For federal loans, look into into an income-driven repayment option. For example, monthly payments under Income-Based Repayment are limited to 15% of “discretionary income” and monthly payments can be set at zero when income is especially low. Private student loans have different repayment rules, and you can read more about options for dealing with those here: http://www.studentloanborrowerassistance.org/understand-loans/private-student-loans/ |
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