Mission and Vision

A fair economy is key to justice for all. Fair Deal NY is fighting for the rights of New Yorkers to live their lives without fear of exploitation. We are a coalition of labor, legal services, nonprofit organizations, consumer advocates, small business groups, and community-based organizations working together to end abusive and unfair business practices in New York by updating New York’s consumer protection law. We demand a fair deal by passing the Fostering Affordability and Integrity Through Reasonable Business Practices Act (“FAIR Act”), championed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, which will be sponsored by Senator Leroy Comrie and Assemblymember Micah Lasher.

New Yorkers have little recourse against predatory businesses because unlike 42 other states and Washington, D.C., New York bans only deceptive, but not unfair and abusive, business practices. This glaring oversight makes New York a hotbed for schemes that extract wealth from communities of color and trap people in financial distress. Student loan servicers can steer borrowers to the most expensive repayment plans when better options exist. Nursing homes can shake down relatives to pay patients’ bills. Debt collectors can manipulate seniors into giving up their limited, protected income. And real estate speculators engage in deed theft by preying on struggling homeowners hoping to avert foreclosure. This “anything goes” policy harms not only individual New Yorkers, but also small business owners, nonprofit organizations, and the honest businesses put at a competitive disadvantage. Moreover, because unscrupulous business practices disproportionately target seniors and extract wealth from people of color, achieving racial justice requires a fair economy for all.

It’s time for us to demand a fair deal by enacting the FAIR Act, which will:

  • Ban unfair and abusive business conduct;

  • Protect small businesses;

  • Impose real consequences for harm by raising the penalty from $50 to $1,000;

  • Improve access to justice by allowing class actions and reasonable attorney’s fees; and

  • Eliminate the confusing requirement that a business’s bad acts affect the public at large, so that an injured individual can be made whole.

  • Abuse has no business in New York. Let’s raise the bar and pass the FAIR Act.

This video describes why New York’s consumer protection statute needs to be updated to be as strong as similar laws in other states.

Please contact Carolyn Coffey at Mobilization for Justice, Inc. to learn more:

(212) 417-3701

ccoffey@mfjlegal.org