As we recently reported, there have been rollbacks of consumer protections on the federal level, including the curtailing of enforcement activity at the CFPB. In response to this activity, on March 13, 2025, the New York Office of the Attorney General (OAG) announced its support of new legislation to enable consumers and small businesses to combat deceptive and unlawful consumer practices in New York. The proposed legislation, entitled The Fostering Affordability and Integrity through Reasonable Business Practices Act (The FAIR Business Practices Act or Act), which has been introduced into the New York State Senate and New York State Assembly, will expressly authorize either the New York Office of the Attorney General or an impacted consumer to maintain a civil action against a corporation that engages in deceptive, unfair, or abusive conduct, as provided in the statute.
According to the OAG, the Act promises to protect consumers from scams that include deed theft, artificial-intelligence based scams, junk fees, data breaches, as well as other deceptive or abusive practices. Proposals in the Act would also inhibit mortgage lenders, auto lenders, and servicers of student loans from directing consumers toward higher-cost loan products. The legislation would also curtail unfair billing practices by healthcare companies and prohibit companies doing business in New York from taking unfair advantage of consumers who lack proficiency in English.
Although New York already has a widely-used consumer protection law – General Business Law § 349 (GBL § 349) – that statute, which was first enacted in 1970, is limited to the enforcement of business acts and practices that are deceptive and does not protect against acts by companies that are unfair or abusive. In contrast, the FAIR Business Practices Act, which would amend GBL § 349, would expressly protect New Yorkers from unfair or abusive corporate behavior in the consumer finance space. It would cover, among other actions, companies that make it difficult for consumers to cancel a subscription, nursing homes that improperly sue relatives of patients when seeking to collect unpaid bills, and health insurance companies that publish lists of practitioners who are purportedly in network but who turn out not to be in network and who ultimately refuse to accept a patient’s insurance.
Separately, in other news affecting New York consumers, Adrienne Harris, the head of the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) recently made an appearance in Washington D.C. and reportedly stated that she has worked to increase the agency’s staffing levels in recent years. She apparently stated that NYDFS plans on continuing its hiring, with more than 200 openings in various roles, and emphasized the agency’s continued growth and recruitment strategy. NYDFS also announced that it has hired Gabriel O’Malley, former deputy enforcement director at the CFPB, to be the executive deputy superintendent of its Consumer Protection and Financial Enforcement Division. This move occurs in light of other recent high-profile personnel departures at the CFPB and among growing uncertainty about the role which the CFPB will have going forward in enforcing federal consumer protection laws under the current administration.
The post New York Seeks to Expand Consumer Protections by Proposing New Legislation and by Increasing Recruitment at its Department of Financial Services appeared first on Consumer Finance Insights (CFI).