Con artists are increasingly turning to cryptocurrency in scams that target older people, accelerating the already surging elder fraud in the United States. Cryptocurrency’s role in elder fraud is exploding, costing older people billions of dollars annually, emptying retirement funds, life savings and the ability to cover daily expenses or enjoy their retirement.
It also has the support of labor and financial-policy groups, including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and National Nurses United. Lisa Donner, executive director of financial watchdog group Americans for Financial Reform, said the bill “takes important, much-needed steps to rein in Wall Street predatory practices and promote a more just and sustainable economy.”
Cryptocurrency promises a high-tech opportunity to make buckets of money, but like most get-rich-quick schemes, rip-offs are ubiquitous. The crypto industry is rife with scams, hustles akin to stock swindles, cyberbreaches, and other crimes that can easily separate investors and consumers from their money.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) recent enforcement action against Ejudicate, a forced arbitration platform, highlights the urgent need to restrain a practice that hurts millions of consumers. The agency found Ejudicate had misled student borrowers about its neutrality in arbitration and illegally started sham forced arbitrations against those borrowers.
The Stop Wall Street Looting Act of 2024 includes new measures to curb the growing power of private equity across the board and in key sectors of the economy like healthcare, and to penalize private equity firms and executives for their actions that harm a company and its workers even after they no longer control it. Lessons from the 2023 collapse of Steward Health Care, which stemmed from its 2010 buyout by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, shaped the new provisions.
Since fall 2023, AFREF and partners have been part of an ongoing Campaign for Lower Home Energy Costs. The goal is for The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to require new homes with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be built to
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) submitted a comment letter supporting a petition from the National Consumer Law Center and the Center for Survivor Agency and Justice asking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to provide relief to victims of coerced debt under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The petition would provide critically needed relief to victims of coerced debt (a form of economic abuse) and further protect people who are survivors of intimate partner violence.
Last week, a New Jersey court ruled that a couple who had been seriously injured in an accident riding in an Uber forfeited their right to sue Uber because their 12-year-old had clicked on a pop-up box in order to track her Uber Eats pizza order a year earlier. The food delivery app contained a forced arbitration clause that the court said invalidated their right to hold Uber accountable in court.
AFREF authored a memo endorsed by nine partner organizations, which highlights opportunities for financial institutions to mitigate climate-related financial risk in a way that doesn’t violate fair lending and supports communities while building resilience through Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) opportunities.
Researchers at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Global Energy Monitor and Private Equity Stakeholder Project assessed the holdings of 21 private equity firms, overseeing a combined $6tn in assets under management.