SALEM — Anyone who receives a gift card, shops for college textbooks or has their car rear-ended in 2008 will have reason to look forward to ringing in the new year.
Those reasons can be found in the Oregon statutes that were updated, and take effect Jan. 1, to strengthen consumer protections.
The 2007 Legislature ushered in a bumper crop of laws aimed at increasing rights and protections of people who borrow money, make purchases or seek out services.
Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, worked on several of these new laws while serving as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. He said many of them represent the Legislature’s attempt to take care of years’ worth of previously ignored consumer protection needs.
“We’re trying to give a little better footing to consumers than what was there in the past,” he said.
The new laws poised to kick in with the new year include strengthened rights and protections for:
Gift card recipients: The law created by House Bill 2513 bans retailers from issuing gift cards with expiration dates unless they are clearly marked. It also prohibits service fees that kick in on the unused balance after time.
Body-shop shoppers: Senate Bill 523 makes it harder for insurers to steer customers to certain collision centers. Insurance representatives can still recommend particular body shops, but will first have to inform their customers of their rights to have repairs made by a shop of their own choosing. The new law also prevents an insurer from limiting a repair’s cost, regardless of which shop does the work.
Textbook buyers: Senate Bill 365 will ensure that when college students try to buy books for next term, they won’t be forced to shell out additional cash for CDs, companion guides or other products. The law prohibits the practice of “bundling,” which allowed publishers to force students to get unrequired materials when they bought the books required by their professors.
Tow-truck “customers”: Before this year, towing businesses in Oregon were largely unregulated. Now, under Senate Bill 116, tow companies must make written disclosures about price and the vehicle’s storage location before they haul off a car or truck. And motorists now will have the right to remove personal items — child seats, medicine, credit cards — before a car is towed.
Senate Bill 431 bans towing vehicles for expired registration stickers, and requires a 72-hour notice before a tow company can haul off a broken-down vehicle from apartment complexes.
People with telephones: Senate Bill 863 allows consumers to block automated telemarketing calls by registering their phone numbers on the no-call list (www.donotcall.gov). The new law also sets rules for those who make robo-calls. They can’t be placed between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m., can’t tie up a line for more than 10 seconds after the receiver has hung up, and can’t falsify their identity.
People who cash “promotional checks”: Senate Bill 122 stops the practice of businesses sending consumers promotional checks that create financial obligations once signed. These marketing tools often come in small amounts but can create financial hardships for Oregonians who mistake the checks for being real.
Some consumer-protection laws passed last spring already are in effect. In the wake of this month’s storms and flooding, Gov. Ted Kulongoski this month evoked a new anti-price-gouging law that lets him declare an “abnormal disruption of the marketplace” and ban merchants and wholesalers from charging more than 15 percent of usual prices for essential goods and services.
Other already-in-effect consumer laws include those that:
Authorize the state attorney general to enforce the “do not call” law.
Halts serial “going out of business” sales by requiring merchants to file information on such a sale with the state. After that, they could not hold identical sales.
Cap interest rates and fees and in other ways regulate short-term lenders such as title and payday loan businesses.
Allow consumers to protect their credit ratings from identity theft. Since October, Oregon law has given residents the right to put a freeze on their credit rating without paying fees if they’ve been victims of identity theft. Also, businesses must notify consumers if their personal information has been subject to a security breach.
Matt Wallace, a consumer advocate with the Oregon State Public Interest Group, said plenty more consumer-protection work still awaits policy-makers. He cited problems with subprime mortgages, and lead-tainted toys from Chinese factories that U.S. and Oregon consumer-protection laws failed to keep out of the product supply chain.
A big reason for the bevy of consumer-protection legislation was that times have changed so much since many of those first laws were adopted in the 1960s and ’70s, Wallace said.
Back then, teaser-rate mortgages, gift cards and robo-calls were unheard of, identity theft was a nonissue, and globalization hadn’t transformed China into a major producer of toys and other products for U.S. consumers.
source:http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=39452&sid=1&fid=1
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