Consumers Counsel of Missouri filed papers Monday, January 14, 2013, to participate in the process in which Laclede Gas Co. is asking to increase the rates it charges customers.  The company is asking for an increase of $48.4 million a year, which will cost the average residential customer $4.93 a month.  The case takes place before the Public Service Commission.

As the case proceeds CCM will be asking the public to participate through testimony at public hearings and letters to the PSC.  Watch for more details on this website.

Read more details at this link.

ThinkProgress, February 3, 2014

The Postal Service (USPS) could spare the most economically vulnerable Americans from dealing with predatory financial companies under a proposal endorsed over the weekend by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

“USPS could partner with banks to make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don’t have basic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in their neighborhoods,” Warren wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed on Saturday.

The op-ed picked up on a report from the USPS’s Inspector General that proposed using the agency’s extensive physical infrastructure to extend basics like debit cards and small-dollar loans to the same communities that the banking industry has generally ignored. The report found that 68 million Americans don’t have bank accounts and spent $89 billion in 2012 on interest and fees for the kinds of basic financial services that USPS could begin offering. The average un-banked household spent more than $2,400, or about 10 percent of its income, just to access its own money through things like check cashing and payday lending stores. USPS would generate savings for those families and revenue for itself by stepping in to replace those non-bank financial services companies.

Those companies are among the most predatory actors in the money business. Payday loans with annual interest rates well north of 100 percent suck billions of dollars out of poor communities every year, with the average customer paying $520 to borrow $375. After decades of operating in a regulatory blind spot and ducking state-level reforms, the payday lending business now faces a crackdown from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The threat of new rules for short-term cash loans in general has caused traditional banks to stop offering deposit-advance loans with similar features.

But while ending triple-digit interest rates and fine-print tricks is a good thing for consumers, it doesn’t reduce the demand for those financial services. The USPS could slide into that space and meet that need without preying upon those communities. “Instead of partnering with predatory lenders,” David Dayen writes in The New Republic, “banks could partner with the USPS on a public option, not beholden to shareholder demands, which would treat customers more fairly.”

America’s post offices are an ideal physical infrastructure for furnishing these services to communities currently neglected by banks. Roughly six in 10 post offices nationwide are in what the USPS report calls “bank deserts” — zip codes with either one or zero bank branches.

Doing business in those communities in more ethical fashion would still be profitable enough to inject about $9 billion into the struggling federal mail agency’s books. The USPS is dealing with a fiscal crisis, one largely manufactured by Congressional choices. The agency gets no taxpayer money for its operations but is still under Congress’s authority, and lawmakers have used that authority to impose arbitrary financial requirements and service constraints that have the post service on the verge of bankruptcy. USPS is legally obligated to hold assets in its pension funds that cover the next 75 years of projected pension costs, a unique and crippling requirement that Congress refuses to lift despite evidence that it is almost solely responsible for the agency’s financial woes.

If you’re thinking about using a new company that you don’t know much about, you can now find out if the company has consumer complaints lodged against it.  Attorney General Jay Nixon has a new website which will give you a history or pattern of consumer complaints eagainst individual companies. For more information, you can also call 1-800-392-8222.

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, Michael Sorkin

Alberta Slavin, who founded the consumer movement in Missouri 40 years ago with a group of housewives angry over grocery prices, died Monday (Oct. 27, 2008) at St. Louis University Hospital after a lengthy illness. She was 78 and a longtime Clayton resident. Her Housewives Elect Lower Prices (HELP) group gained national prominence in 1967 targeting supermarkets over high prices in inner city neighborhoods. She then formed the Utility Consumers Council of Missouri after the phone company cut off her service because she wasn’t using a company-approved telephone. Gov. Joe Teasdale named her in 1977 to the Missouri Public Service Commission, calling her the first consumer advocate to head it.For nearly seven years in the 1980s, she was the “On Your Side” reporter at KMOV-TV.

In 2001, Attorney General Jay Nixon named her to the board of directors of the new Missouri Health Foundation and she became its president. Today, the foundation has more than $1 billion on hand to help Missourians improve their health.

In 2006, Mrs. Slavin again became concerned at what she considered the lack of consumer influence to counter utilities and their allies in Jefferson City. She formed the Consumers Council of Missouri, a budding statewide group that speaks for consumers. Today, the group is fighting an effort by AmerenUE to reverse a state law preventing electric companies from charging customers for power plants before they become operational.

Missouri voters approved the law in 1976 and Mrs. Slavin and her first consumers council led the fight.Mrs. Slavin remained president of the newly reconstituted group until her death. “She was Ms. Consumer in Missouri for decades,” said Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City.

For the First Time Consumers Will Get Federal Assistance on Complaints

On October 26st, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) began accepting consumer complaints about credit reporting, giving consumers individual-level complaint assistance for the first time at the federal level.

“Credit reporting companies exert great influence over the lives of consumers. They help determine eligibility for loans, housing, and sometimes jobs,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Consumers need an avenue of recourse when they feel they have been wronged.”

Consumer reporting agencies, which include what are popularly called credit bureaus or credit reporting companies, are private businesses that track a consumer’s credit history and other consumer transactions. The credit reports they generate – and the three-digit credit scores that are based on those reports – play an increasingly important role in the lives of American consumers.

The largest credit reporting companies issue more than 3 billion consumer reports a year and maintain files on more than 200 million Americans. The consequences of errors in a consumer report can be catastrophic for a consumer, shutting him or her out of credit markets, jeopardizing employment prospects, or significantly increasing the cost of housing.

Although a small number of large businesses dominate the credit reporting market, there are many consumer reporting agencies in the United States. The market includes: the three largest credit reporting companies that sell comprehensive consumer reports; consumer report resellers that repackage information they buy from the largest companies; and specialty consumer reporting companies that primarily collect and provide specific types of information like on payday loans or checking accounts.

For consumers who believe that there is incorrect information on their credit reports or who have an issue with an investigation, before filing with the CFPB, they should first file a dispute and get a response from the consumer reporting agency itself. There are important consumer rights guaranteed by federal consumer financial law that may be best preserved by first going through the credit reporting company’s complaint process. Once that process is complete, if the consumer is dissatisfied with the resolution or if the consumer reporting agency does not respond, the CFPB is available to assist.

A consumer can come to the CFPB if he or she, for example, has issues with:

• · Incorrect information on a credit report;
• · A consumer reporting agency’s investigation;
• · The improper use of a credit report;
• · Being unable to get a copy of a credit score or file; and
• · Problems with credit monitoring or identify protection services.

Today’s announcement extends the kinds of complaints the CFPB already handles. The CFPB began taking credit card complaints when it launched on July 21, 2011. Since then, it has expanded to take complaints on mortgages, bank accounts and services, consumer loans, and private student loans.

Consumers are given a tracking number after submitting a complaint with the CFPB and can check the status of their complaint by logging on to the CFPB website. Each complaint will be processed individually and sent to the company for response. The CFPB expects the consumer reporting agencies to respond to complaints sent to them within 15 days with the steps they have taken or plan to take. Consumers will have the option to dispute the company’s response to the complaint.

In July 2012, the CFPB adopted a rule to begin supervising larger consumer reporting agencies that have more than $7 million in annual receipts. The CFPB’s supervisory authority extends to an estimated 30 companies that account for about 94 percent of the market’s annual receipts. The CFPB’s authority to supervise these companies became effective Sept. 30, 2012.

In September, the CFPB also released a study looking at credit scores, the three-digit numbers, based on a credit report that are assigned to consumers and used to determine credit worthiness. The study compared credit scores sold to creditors and those sold to consumers. The study found that about one in five consumers would likely receive a different score than the score provided to a lender.

Questions and answers on credit reporting are available on AskCFPB. A consumer advisory on credit reporting is also available.

To file a credit reporting complaint, consumers can:

• · File online at www.consumerfinance.gov/Complaint
• · Call the toll-free phone number at 1-855-411-CFPB (2372) or TTY/TDD phone number at 1-855-729-CFPB (2372)
• · Fax the CFPB at 1-855-237-2392
• · Mail a letter to: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, P.O. Box 4503, Iowa City, Iowa 52244

Consumers can receive free copies of their credit reports every 12 months fromAnnualCreditReport.com. This is the only authorized source that provides free disclosures from the three major national credit reporting companies – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work by making rules more effective, by consistently and fairly enforcing those rules, and by empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives. For more information, visit www.consumerfinance.gov.

St. Louis Beacon, January 16, 2013

The head of the Missouri Public Service Commission will depart from his post later this spring, a move that will cause another vacancy for the powerful agency that regulates the state’s utilities.

Kevin Gunn, a Webster Groves native, told the Beacon on Wednesday he will leave the PSC on or around March 1. Among other things, the commission is responsible for deciding utility cases as well as crafting and enforcing various administrative rules.

Gunn’s decision gives Gov. Jay Nixon another opportunity to appoint somebody to the five-person PSC. Earlier this month, he appointed former state Sen. Bill Kenney, R-Jackson County, to fill a vacancy.

In an interview, Gunn said that he had spoken with Nixon about leaving the PSC before the most recent election. But he decided to stay on to finish up some pressing matters before the commission.

While he is planning to leave March 1, Gunn said he’d be willing to stay longer if necessary.

Gunn said family concerns — and the grind of commuting from the St. Louis area to Jefferson City every week — were a factor.

He said he would rather be “more involved watching my boys grow up instead of driving an hour and 45 minutes to be in Jeff City on a regular basis.”

“I’ve been doing this for about five years. We’ve done a lot a good stuff. The agency is in really good shape. And we’ve gotten pastAmeren and Kansas City Power and Light – we’ve gotten past these big rate cases,” he said. “My kids are 10 and 7, and I’m kind of looking forward to getting back to St. Louis.”

Gunn stressed that he didn’t have a job lined up or any specific idea of what he plans to do next. State statutes, he said, prohibit him from taking job solicitations from law firms with clients under the PSC’s jurisdiction. He also said that he must wait at least year before lobbying or appearing before the PSC.

“The beauty of this and the fortunate place I’m at in my life is that I have the ability to take a little bit of time to figure out what’s next,” Gunn said. “And so, I am going to take that time. I haven’t foreclosed any possibility. I think the most likely possibility is the private sector. But I really haven’t foreclosed anything. The rules are set up so that you don’t trade on this office. And that’s something that I’m steadfastly trying not to do. I want to make sure I do everything right.”

Among other things, Gunn was a longtime aide to then-U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-St. Louis. He also was elected during the 2000s to the Webster Groves City Council.

Gunn was actively raising money in 2007 to run for a state Senate seat then held by Senate President Pro Tem Michael Gibbons, R-Kirkwood. But that bid ended when Gov. Matt Blunt, a Republican, tapped Gunn to the PSC — a move that left Senate Democrats fuming.He was eventually confirmed though, and Nixon made him the chairman of the PSC in 2011.

In addition to helping decide various rate cases and crafting the guidelines for a renewable energy mandate, Gunn also was involved in the long-running legislative discussion over bills aimed at building another nuclear reactor in Callaway County.

Gunn said serving on the PSC was “best job he ever had,” adding that it was the “perfect intersection of law and public policy.” But he also said that doing job correctly meant making a lot of people unhappy.

“You are granting rate increases, because the law requires you to do that and utilities need that and because the job requires you to do that, even though you know you’re in tough economic times, even though you know that there may be individuals who may not be able to afford that. That’s the hardest part,” Gunn said.

“And you’re saying this is going to be very hard for these people in the next six months or the next year,” he added. “But what you try to do is make decisions that are going to benefit all consumers and utilities and all businesses and all ratepayers – not only in the next year but in the next 20 years or the next 30 years.”

USA Today, January 16, 2013

Car dealers and small rental-car companies want to be able to sell, lend or rent cars that have been recalled for a variety of defects — before they’re fixed. And they’re working behind the scenes on Capitol Hill to make sure they can.

Major rental-car companies agreed last year not to do that. But lawmakers, concerned about vehicle safety, want everyone on board. Legislation to block all rental-car companies from loaning out recalled vehicles before repairs are made will be reintroduced soon in the new Congress, says Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a co-sponsor of the legislation.

Accidents, injuries and deaths have been attributed to rental cars with defects that were subject to recalls but that had not been repaired.

As proposed in the final days of the last Congress, the bill also covered used car dealers, smaller rental-car companies and the loaner and rental cars offered by new-car dealers. Existing law only requires that recall fixes be made to new cars before they’re sold.

“The agency believes that all vehicles under recall should be promptly repaired — regardless of whether they are new, used, leased, or rented,” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland said in a statement this week.

The General Accounting Office urged NHTSA to seek authority to require used car dealers — who sold 11 million vehicles in 2009 — to make recall repairs to vehicles before selling them. NHTSA says there are about 600 vehicle recalls a year, affecting about 20 million vehicles.

“Many consumers may be unknowingly putting their lives at risk by purchasing a defective vehicle,” the GAO said in a June 2011 report.

Exempting car dealers would confuse consumers who have a right to know that a vehicle “is free from defects and safe to drive,” says Blumenthal.

Dealers have a financial incentive to fix recalled cars quickly because manufacturers are paying for the work, says Bailey Wood, spokesman for the National Automobile Dealers Association. But he adds that many recalls are minor and might not justify taking vehicles out of service.

“Not all recalls are the same,” says Wood. “It could be a windshield wiper problem in Death Valley.”

Used car dealers who aren’t affiliated with a franchised new-car dealer, however, say there must be a better system for notifying them of recalls, which sometimes only affect certain vehicle identification numbers within a model year.

“Philosophically, we don’t have a problem fixing a vehicle that has an open recall notice — as long as we know about it,” says Steve Jordan, chief operating officer of the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association.

Rent-A-Wreck owner Jack Fitzgerald says that requiring smaller rental car companies to fix recalled cars before renting them could put them out of business. He says they get parts later than the bigger companies.

But consumer advocates say legislation is need. The bill, known as the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act, is named for sisters from Santa Cruz, Calif., who were killed when their rental car caught fire and crashed into a truck. The defect was the subject of a recall, but the car had not been repaired.

In 2008, Gary Masi of Greenwich, Conn., was permanently disabled in a 2008 Lexus ES 350 loaner car that had been recalled for an unsecured floor mat but not repaired. He hit a tractor trailer on the highway while the car was careening out of control, according to a statement prepared for a congressional hearing.

Consumer advocate Rosemary Shahan, who pressed for the legislation, believes there are more victims but says many injuries and deaths don’t become public because rental car companies and dealers aren’t required to report them to NHTSA and always insist that victims sign confidentiality agreements.

St. Louis Beacon, December 11, 2012

Even though Missouri law bars utilities from charging their customers for construction projects that haven’t produced any power, Ameren Missouri has tacked $10 million onto Missouri customers’ bills for power lines that it hasn’t even started to build yet.

The utility estimates that this cost will increase to $53 million by 2016.

The Public Service Commission staff and Office of Public Counsel, which represents the ratepayer in these hearings, had been unaware of a significant portion of these charges until after they had begun to flow into the customers’ bills.

On Wednesday, the PSC approved a $260 million rate increase for Ameren Missouri, about two-thirds of what the company had sought. The hike goes into effect Jan. 2.

Read more here. 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 13.2012

A growing number of American households don’t have a checking or savings account, a clear sign of much deeper financial instability.

The percentage of households in the St. Louis region that are ‘unbanked’ rose to an estimated 9.7 percent in 2011, according to a survey released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Wednesday, an increase from 7.6 percent in 2009, when the survey was last conducted.

The percentage of unbanked African-American households soared to 29 percent locally, among the highest rates in the nation, though down slightly from the last survey.

Nationally, 8.2 percent of U.S. households, or about 10 million, are unbanked, an increase of about 821,000 households since 2009.

For Wednesday’s report, the FDIC surveyed households across the country in June 2011, partnering with the U.S. Census Bureau.

The primary reason people surveyed gave for not having a bank account was a sense that they didn’t have enough money to open one, according to the report.

The increasing number of people without a checking or savings account alarms those who work with the region’s poor, who often rely instead on costly alternatives to cash checks or take out loans.

“All of these things take resources out of the households,” said Jacqueline Hutchinson, director of city services for the Community Action Agency of St. Louis County, an Overland-based nonprofit.

Without bank accounts and established credit, families can’t buy cars and homes or start businesses, Hutchinson said, dragging down the region’s economy. “It really impacts the entire community, not just the household,” she said.

Hutchinson also co-chairs the St. Louis Regional Unbanked Task Force, which formed in recent years to spur banks to increase services to low income households and minorities.

Since the task force formed, nearly a dozen local banks have developed new services and products for the unbanked and underbanked — which are defined as households that have a bank account but use costly alternative financial services. The FDIC’s survey found that the one in four households nationwide, or 28.3 percent, are considered either unbanked or underbanked.

The number of unbanked households would have been higher had community groups not prodded banks to increase their financial literacy efforts and outreach to underserved communities, Hutchinson said.

“The economic downturn was happening at the same time (the task force formed), and a lot of people got in trouble financially,” she said.

CATALYST FOR ACTION

The FDIC’s study found wide discrepancies among racial groups’ banks usage. In 2009, the St. Louis metro area had the highest percentage of unbanked black households in the country, at 31 percent. In the newly released report, St. Louis had the third highest percentage. Nationally, 21.4 percent of black households are unbanked.

By contrast, just one percent of St. Louis households identifying as white in 2009 reported a lack of bank accounts. That figure rose to 3 percent in the St. Louis region in the latest report.

The Minneapolis metro area ranked highest nationally for unbanked black households at 37.5 percent, followed by Cleveland at 31.6 percent.

The FDIC’s 2009 study served as catalyst for community organizations to work with banks to increase access to financial services, said Rance Thomas, president of the nonprofit group North County Churches Uniting for Racial Harmony and Justice, which works with other local nonprofit groups to increase access to financial services.

“We made the community aware of the FDIC’s study and the need to do something,” Thomas said. “There had been a great need for some time. But I think many banks just ignored it.”

Thomas believes the lack of traditional banking perpetuates a cycle of poverty, driving poor families to high-interest short-term loans.

Accessing a cash advance through a car title loan company, for example, can come with triple-digit annual percentage rates. At a car title loan outlet, a person with no bank account can borrow cash in exchange for a vehicle’s title, jeopardizing their transportation and ability to work.

“People get trapped,” Thomas said.

Several banks in the St. Louis area have increased services and products aimed at poor people, prompted by the nonprofit Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council (EHOC).

EHOC’s staff began focusing on the lack of access to financial services in 2009. The council began prodding local banks to open more branches and expanding financial services in low-income neighborhoods to reverse the unbanked statistics.

“I feel like a lot has changed in the banking culture,” said Elisabeth Risch, education and research coordinator at EHOC. “There has been a lot of positive collaboration with banks, but this kind of thing takes a long time.”

In a report slated to be released today by the St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Reinvestment Alliance, EHOC and other local groups cited progress on access to financial services.

Three new bank branches are opening in St. Louis County as a result of the groups’ efforts, including a Midwest BankCentre branch slated to open in Pagedale in November.

Additionally, local banks have committed to spend $14.5 million on community development activities and $550,000 on financial education targeting low income communities.

MAKING PROGRESS

Several banks also have developed new checking accounts and small-dollar loan programs specifically geared to the unbanked, including First National Bank of St. Louis.

First National Bank of St. Louis opened a branch in Ferguson in March, following an unfair lending complaint against the Clayton-based bank. In 2009, EHOC filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, alleging First National failed to provide banking services in black neighborhoods in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act.

“Most of us in the banking industry were embarrassed by the high FDIC numbers,” said Rick Bagy, president of the bank.

Since opening, the Ferguson bank branch has had smaller average deposits than the bank’s other branches spread throughout the metro area, he said, but home loan volume has been strong.

“I’ve been very happy with our home mortgage volume there,” Bagy said. The bank has also rolled out new products geared to attract the unbanked. One of them, Easy Choice Checking, doesn’t allow users to overdraft their account and rack up high fees.

Hefty overdraft fees are among the reasons people moved away from banks during the economic downturn.

“There’s so much distrust in the industry,” said Rose Eichelberger, founder and executive director of Ready, Aim, Advocate, a Jennings-based nonprofit that offers job readiness training to the poor.

Eichelberger also has worked with banks to expand their financial literacy efforts.

“Financial education is not an option; it’s a requirement,” she said about her group, which pairs classes on creating a budget and savings account with job placement assistance.

New efforts are underway to reverse unbanked trends. The St. Louis Regional Unbanked Task Force will kick off a program called Bank On Save Up next year with the goal of assisting 20,000 households to open checking or savings accounts within two years.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis also plans to hold a two-day conference in late October with speakers from across the country discussing access to financial services as part of the Fed’s new research effort on the state of American household’s balance sheets.

“Access is the very first step to household financial stability,” said Bill Emmons, an economist with the St. Louis Fed. At the Fed’s conference, speakers will present advances in technology, such as mobile banking, that could help increase access to financial services.

“Technology is going to be the real game changer,” Emmons said. “There’s a feeling that this is a unique time to make a lot of progress very quickly.”