About a dozen times I’ve written about price gouging being one of the biggest drivers of inflation, along lamenting about how politicians weren’t talking about it. President Biden took up the topic recently, and Kamala Harris, vice president and the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, announced it Friday as part... Read more →

Monopoly power hurts consumers in so many ways every day. It’s good news that states and the federal government are bringing more antitrust actions. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Monday that Google unlawfully leverages its dominance in the online search and related text advertising markets through exclusionary contracts, harming consumers and advertisers. Read more →

Car repairs are a dreaded expense for most families. When you see a TV ad – with a celebrity saying “you’ll never pay for expensive car repairs again,” it may seem like just the thing for you. When you call, a “specialist” confirms what the ads promised and offers to... Read more →

And, again, history repeats itself. The nation’s leading residential solar energy financing lenders are using predatory methods including undisclosed profit arrangements with their preferred installers and expensive financing with hidden fees as a standard practice to target consumers for financial exploitation, according to a new report. Read more →

August marks the beginning of the end of summer, as well as a new school year for many people. Because of that, it may not seem like a good time for shopping anything other than pencils, notebooks, and backpacks. However, August has much more than back to school deals and... Read more →

Which cities are best for finding hidden gems at yard sales? To mark the annual 127 Yard Sale — The World’s Longest Yard Sale, starting Aug. 1 — Lawn Love ranked 2024's Best Cities for Scouring Garage Sales. It compared the 500 biggest U.S. cities based on four categories. More... Read more →

My daughter Mona is great at making salads. As part of a large farm family, she’s used to cooking for crowds. When she comes to visit, as she did for my July Fourth party, she always asks me to get out the large bowls. Then she peruses her vegetarian cookbooks, which she brings with her, and prepares her latest salad success. Read more →

Thursday I wrote about how more than 50 percent of inflation is caused by corporate price gouging and wondered why politicians don’t talk about it and news organizations don’t cover it. Friday I was going to write about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau suing Acima and its former chief executive officer Aaron Allred for illegal lending activities. Read more →

It’s amazing that corporate price gouging gets such little attention. It’s responsible for more than 50 percent of inflation that’s causing consumers so much stress and hardship. However, it gets little publicity. Accountable.US, a consumer watchdog group, reports lots of information on this, but I seldom see it in the press. Here are a few examples: Read more →

What’s surveillance pricing? It’s when a company looks at information about you and sets the price of an item or service you want to buy based on that information. The FTC issued orders to eight companies offering surveillance pricing. It wants to know about the possible impacts these practices have on privacy, competition, and consumer protection. Read more →