Fair Is Fair—Reshaping Alaska’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act

Few fields of law impact as wide a swath of population as consumer protection law. Alaska adopted its consumer protection statute, the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act (UTPCPA), amid a national movement to strengthen consumer protection laws. The UTPCPA uses broad language to encompass a wide range of conduct. However, creative pleading and recent applications of the UTPCPA have expanded the law in ways that threaten Alaska businesses even in the absence of culpable conduct. This Note reviews the history of consumer protection, Alaska’s UTPCPA, and the incentives leading to an expanding application of the UTPCPA. The Note concludes by proposing potential legislative solutions to rein in abuse of the Act

Debt collection guideline for collectors & creditors

This guide assists creditors, collectors, collectors and debtors to understand their rights and obligations, and ensure that debt collection activity is under taken in a way that is consistent with consumer protection laws. Summary Both the ACCC and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) enforce Commonwealth consumer protection laws, including laws relevant to debt collection. The ACCC and ASIC have jointly produced this guideline which aims to assist creditors, collectors and debtors understand their rights and obligations, and ensure that debt collection activity is undertaken in a way that is consistent with consumer protection laws. The guide was originally published in 2005 and has been updated to reflect significant changes to the law, such as the introduction of the Australian Consumer Law in 2011, the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, and privacy laws and principles

The Legal Infrastructure of Ex Post Consumer Debtor Protections

This article reviews the legal infrastructure of tools that protect debtors’ assets or income, or that enable debtors to resolve secured credit problems during ordinary times (e.g., not specific crisis interventions). Part I divides consumer protection tools into functional categories: protection of assets and future income, and retention of property subject to a security interest in default. Part II identifies the location of similar tools in federal law, uniform state law, and non-uniform state law. Part III examines implications of this divided system, with a special focus on the bundling of debtor protections and the role of intermediaries. This discussion helps the reader imagine improvements to consumer protection whether or not new legal tools are added

Payment system regulation and how it causes consumer confusion

On October 14, 2004, the Payment Cards Center hosted a workshop led by Professor Mark Budnitz of Georgia State University School of Law. Budnitz, the author of four books and many Law Review articles on consumer payments, described how the current regime of consumer payment regulation and various new payment products have led to much confusion among consumers. He also discussed a remedy for this situation: the adoption of uniform federal consumer protection standards. This paper summarizes the workshop and is organized around two of Budnitz’s key assertions: (1) the current regulatory environment is confusing for consumers and (2) there is a need for more uniform consumer protection standards.Consumer protection ; Debit cards

The protection of the consumers’ interests in the car distribution

The present study gives an overview primary of the private law rules of the miscellaneous regulations of the consumer protection on the example of car distribution, presenting its civil law and competition law regulations.

To be or not to be an auctioneer: Some thoughts on the legal nature of online eBay auctions and the protection of consumers

This paper discusses the legal classification of online “eBay” auctions. The discussion has key implications on the scope of consumer protection law as sale by auctions are, for example, excluded from the scope of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000. The paper uncovers that online “eBay” auctions cannot always be considered as traditional auctions and that eBay, as an intermediary, is not to be considered as an auctioneer. This creates difficulties associated with a distributive application of consumer protection laws such as the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000. Another set of difficulties is associated with a lenient legal regime applicable to the liability of eBay under the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 . The paper concludes that there is an urgent need to clarify the legal classification of online auctions and to rethink the liability of online auction sites to better protect consumers

Croatian Accession to the European Union: Institutional Challenges

This paper gives an overview of three important aspects of consumer protection in the process of adjustment to the standards and norms of the European Union (EU): aspects concerning legislation and implementation, and, last but not least, the aspect of consumer representation. On the basis of experiences of accession countries (Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria) in their alignment with European Community (EC) consumer protection, this paper recalls the initial lack of any reliable tradition, also pointing out, however, the significant results made in this sector in the future Member States of the European Union. The main rationale is that, like in most of the accession and candidate countries, the law on consumer protection in Croatia represents only the starting point in the achievement of high standards of protection of consumer health and safety.consumer protection, consumer policy, Croatia, accession countries, Stabilisation and Association Agreement, European Union, the acquis

Controlled Chaos with Consumer Welfare as the Winner – a Study of the Goals of Polish Antitrust Law

This article presents the main issues relating to the goals of modern Polish competition law. It examines the relationship between the subject-matter of competition law, its function and its goals. It identifies various goals of competition law as well as their acceptance in the legal doctrine and jurisprudence. The study shows that the goals of Polish competition law have always been limited to enhancing efficiency and consumer welfare, with this latter term being understood in a post-Chicago-school fashions, rather than accordingly to its Chicago-school origin. This article shows how an 18-years competition law system, rather accidentally than deliberately, took the best ideas from both the American and the European legal tradition and mix them up into an incoherent, yet workable system of competition protection which is favourable towards efficient operations and, at the same time, safeguards consumers against exploitation and diminished choice.competition, goals, public interest, efficiency, consumer protection, consumer welfare, competitor, economic freedom, restriction of competition

Extrajudicial Consumer Pressure: An Effective Impediment to Unethical Business Practices

Although recent efforts in consumer protection have centered upon additional legislative assistance, several direct extrajudicial and non-official forms of self-help can be successfully employed by a dissatisfied consumer. This comment explores the legal limits on such forms of action conducted either by an individual consumer or by an organized group, with a view toward providing a standard which will enable protestors to remain within the law yet be effective in their actions

Perlindungan Hukum terhadap Konsumen yang Menerima Alat Pembayaran yang Tidak Sah dalam Transaksi Jual Beli Ditinjau dari Undang-Undang Nomor 8 Tahun 1999 Tentang Perlindungan Konsumen.

Law no. 8 of 1999 on Consumer Protection has given the force of law that the consumer has an equal footing with businesses, as well as to raise consumer awareness of their rights against businesses that acted arbitrarily and also raise awareness of liability businesses. The problems posed in the writing of this paper is how consumer protection laws against the change does not comply with consumer rights Act No. 8 of 1999 on Consumer Protection. With regard to the right of consumers to accept the change, when the money more than necessary is used to pay at the modern minimarket, sometimes events happen that should not, in which the officers who serve've not return the remaining money should be received by the consumer. This course can be categorized as an action that makes consumers feel uncomfortable. The research method is that the sociological law research and data collection is done by searching for information based on the questionnaires, interviews and review of literature, which it aims to determine the legal protection of consumers that the change does not comply with consumer rights Act Law No. 8 of 1999 on Consumer Protection. The conclusion of this study is consumers are feel aggrieved in material and immaterial because their rights are not given as they should and deserve to get legal protection