FAQs

1) Didn’t New York State just pass a UDAAP ban?

In 2025, New York State passed a bill that banned unfair and abusive business practices but only gave the Attorney General the ability to enforce it. At the last minute, Leadership caved to corporate pressure and stripped the bill of the right for regular people to bring their own claims to get their money back when they have been harmed.

The bill also failed to close an unpredictable loophole that excludes small businesses, and even many consumer transactions if they don’t have a broad public impact.

As a result, a person at risk of losing their home due to deed theft, a veteran gouged for illegal loan fees, and a small business owner trapped in a predatory equipment lease, have no recourse to just get their money back.

2) What does this issue have to do with me?

Every New Yorker who deals with any business will benefit from this law–whether you rent an apartment, seek mortgage refinancing, admit a relative to a nursing home, purchase a car, furniture, or cell phone, need immigration assistance, engage with a debt collector or servicer, or contract with vendors for your own business. You should be treated fairly and honestly. You should not be exploited.

So if, for example, your landlord consistently overcharges you for rent, with a stronger consumer protection law, you would be able to get back your money, as well as a penalty of $1,000, and your landlord would have to cover your attorney’s fees.

But because scams constantly evolve, it is impossible to ban them one by one. That’s why New York needs a catch-all standard of fair business, just like 42 other states and DC have.

3)How does a strong consumer protection law help communities of color?

Predatory business practices target and extract wealth from people of color, in communities with fewer safe options due to past and present discrimination. In addition, discriminatory practices are themselves unfair and abusive. Banning these practices, and giving the individuals harmed the power to enforce the law and get their money back, is a necessary step towards racial justice.

4) Isn’t “unfair” vague?

Big Business complains that an unfairness ban is vague and impossible to comply with. But the unfairness ban is a time-tested standard with clear definitions that are well developed by the courts. Businesses know how to comply with it because they already do throughout the country.

5) Will amending New York's consumer protection law hurt businesses?

No, it will help them. Small business owners driven to bankruptcy by predatory lenders and commercial landlords need protection, too. And allowing bad actors to run amok puts honest companies at a competitive disadvantage.

Businesses that already comply with this well-defined standard throughout the country have never identified a single desirable product withheld from the market due to uncertainty about whether it would be considered unfair.

As Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha stated after similar legislation passed in his state in 2021, “Businesses that do it the right way have nothing to fear from this statute.”

6) Who would oppose this?

Big Business, including the insurance industry and car dealers. They know that New York is one of the last states where they can exploit customers with impunity.

7) Is frivolous litigation a concern?

No, that argument is a tactic corporations use to horde the public courts for their own private disputes while slamming the doors on the regular people whose taxes pay for them. States that have recently passed UDAAP bans, like Delaware and Colorado, have not reported a rise in litigation.

By definition, if a claim is frivolous, it does not meet the prevailing legal standard and can already be brought. Our legal system already has ways of preventing such cases–through sanctions, early dismissal, and attorney discipline.

The Corporate Think Tanks recycling this tired argument claim that consumer class action filings in New York have increased between 2017 and 2020, to 183 cases. This number amounts to one class action per .000009 New Yorkers–microscopic considering the population of New York and the number of businesses located in New York City.

Furthermore, the percentage of these class actions deemed frivolous by the Corporate Think Tanks is minuscule: 10 examples over a span of six years, all of which were either voluntarily discontinued or dismissed. In other words, the system worked.

By focusing on so-called silly cases like whether strawberry pop-tarts contain real strawberries or whether “Belgian chocolates” are made in Belgium, corporations are distracting from the real financial distress that New Yorkers experience because of UDAAPs. And they are asking us to prioritize the profits of companies that have counsel on retainer and are well situated to either settle a case or litigate it, over the needs of New Yorkers whose only option may be bankruptcy.