CONSUMER CREDIT FILES II, 1968-1982

Summary: Files of the Consumer Credit Committee primarily from the 1970s. Document types include correspondence, minutes, reports, testimony, bills, press releases, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings and publications.

Documents the League's ultimately successful campaign for Holder in Due Course legislation, the closing of a loophole which protected financial institutions from all legal remedies in cases where illegitimate contractors negotiated installment loans and then passed them on to banks to collect. Also documents the League's effort in 1977 to amend the 1948 Banking Act, clarifying and simplifying the interest rate structure, and lobbying for the Federal Trade Commission's Credit Practices Rule (16CFR Part 444) concerning unfair credit practices, which was adopted in 1977. In 1978, the League supported the Consumer Credit Reform Act, which, in cases of repossession, prohibited collectors from forcing creditors to pay attorney's fees and required creditors to either elect to repossess or sue for the unpaid balance rather than do both.

Of particular interest is the Assertive Consumer Workshop (1978) developed by the National Consumers' League, which the New Jersey League sponsored.