It's National Consumer Protection Week (Yay!)

If you're a journalist who covers personal finance issues, it may come as no surprise that this is National Consumer Protection Week. On the other hand, you could be looking at your monitor right now muttering, "What the heck is National Consumer Protection Week? Do I need to cover this?" Only you and your editor can answer the second question, but we can certainly help with the first.

Officially, NCPW is a "coordinated campaign that encourages consumers nationwide to take full advantage of their consumer rights and make better-informed decisions." Just take a look at the list of the participating organizations on the government site marking the week. Frankly, while we're happy to celebrate the Hanukkah of personal finance, like many of you this is pretty much what we here at Credit.com do daily, all year long.
Nevertheless, we're running a special series of NCPW articles, kicking off with today's piece by our Director of Consumer Education Gerri Detweiler, Time for a Fair Medical Billing Act, which examines one of the most challenging issues American consumers face: medical debt. This week we'll also be running these:
Consumer Protection Needed: Military Lending - America's military members and veterans are put into some unique financial situations. We look at why our armed forces need better consumer protections than the average American.



Consumer Protection Needed: Student Loan Bankruptcy - Credit scoring expert Barry Paperno has seen the damage student loans can do to Americans' credit reports. In our third NCPW story, we examine the argument behind discharging student loans in bankruptcy.
Consumer Protection Needed: Financial Literacy - For the fourth part of our series for NCPW, we conducted a survey that showed Americans feel a need for a required financial literacy course in high school. We examine how the government should go about instituting a financial literacy curriculum.