February 10, 2025

Project 2025 Author Immiediately Stops Consumer Protection Bureau From Investigating

The CFPB says that it has obtained nearly $20 billion in financial relief for U.S. consumers since its founding in the form of canceled debts, compensation, and reduced loans. Last month, the bureau sued Capital One for allegedly misleading consumers about its offerings for high-interest savings accounts — and “cheating” customers out of more than $2 billion in lost interest payments as a result.

The administration’s move against the CFPB also highlights the tensions between Trump’s more populist promises to lower costs for working-class families and his pledge to reduce government regulation.

During the campaign, Trump said he would cap credit card interest rates at 10%, after they had soared to record levels above 20%, on average, as the Federal Reserve lifted interest rates in 2022 and 2023. The CFPB had started work on how that proposal would be implemented.

AP News CFPB By-The-Numbers

Here’s a look at some of the CFPB’s achievements, by the numbers:

• $17.5 billion — The amount of money the CFPB has put back in Americans’ pockets in the form of monetary compensation, principal reductions, canceled debts, and other consumer relief resulting from CFPB enforcement and supervision work
• $4 billion — The amount of money CFPB has imposed in civil money penalties on companies and individuals that violate the law. This money is deposited into the victims relief fund which provides compensation to people who have been harmed by violations of federal consumer financial protection law
• 200 million — The estimated number of consumer accounts eligible to receive financial relief from the CFPB’s enforcement and supervision work
• $175 million — The amount of monetary relief resulting from 39 public enforcement actions that involved harm to servicemembers and veterans
• 50.1 million — The number of users who have accessed answers to hundreds of common financial questions via the CFPB’s Ask CFPB database
• **4 million — The number of consumer complaints the CFPB has sent to companies for response on behalf of consumers. Our public Consumer Complaint Database has published over 3.8 million of those
• 3,000 — The average number of complaints the CFPB handles each day
• 180 — The number of languages that consumers can use to file a complaint

CFPB

The CFPB had just finalized a rule in January, that banks and lenders will no longer be able to consider unpaid medical bills as a credit history factor when deciding whether to approve loans or mortgages for Americans. BUT because it hasn’t taken effect yet, this order suspends it.

Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion already said they’ll remove unpaid medical debt from credit reports where the amount is $500 or under. But the new CFPB rule went further, and banned ALL outstanding medical bills from showing up on credit reports, AND prohibited lenders from using that information.

CFPB created this new rule because research that showed that outstanding medical debt is a poor predictor of ability to pay a loan. The new rule would have removed $49 billion in medical debt from the credit reports of 15 million Americans.

According to CFPB, 1 in 5 Americans have at least one medical debt collection account on their credit reports, and over half of collection entries on credit reports are for medical debts. But now this rule will die on the vine, and those 15 million Americans will continue to suffer.

Consumer Finance

Previous post Utah Legislature bans collective bargaining for teachers unions and other public sector jobs Republicans DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU. By way of AP News Next post The 24-Hour Reality Check: Musk’s Impossible Power Grab And America’s Crisis There are twenty-four hours in a day. This isn’t a matter of political opinion or technological disruption—it’s as immutable as the fact that two