Sen. Ted Cruz & Rep. John Ratcliffe have introduced matching bills in the House & Senate to abolish the CFPB. According to Sen. Ted Cruz:
Don’t let the name fool you, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does little to protect consumers…
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that we will often recommend filing a complaint with the CFPB if you’ve exhausted other avenues of complaints with a financial institution and still haven’t received a satisfactory response (e.g Citibank). I’ll let the CFPB’s work speak for itself:
- Wells Fargo To Pay $185 Million In Fines, Fires 5,300 Employees For Opening Accounts Illegally
- CFPB Warns Consumers & Credit Card Issuers About Deceptive 0% APR Offers
- CFPB & AG Offices Take Action Against J.P. Morgan Chase For Selling ‘Zombie Debts’
- CFPB Orders UniCard & Mastercard To Pay $10 Million To RushCard Users & Additional $3 Million Fine
- In total the CFPB has provided $11.7 billion in relief to consumers and 27 million consumers have received that relief.
What You Can Do
If you think the CFPB does provide useful protections to consumers and don’t want to see it abolished, you should take action. You should contact your elected officials (this is useful for finding their details) and state your case. Similarly if you feel the CFPB should be abolished then you should let your elected officials know.
As a friendly reminder, you’re allowed to disagree with me or other readers in the comments below. Let’s keep things respectful and avoid name calling. Anything sexist, racist or homophobic will be removed.
Hat tip to /r/churning
I am not convinced that the cost of excessive government ever benefits the consumer in real terms. The US government is bankrupt and only apparently solvent because of less than zero percent bailout loans given by the FED. We can’t afford Medicare, Social Security nor Obamacare. The last thing we need is more unfunded government. Remember the credit market was far more advantageous before the creation of these consumer protection agencies.
The brainwashed deplorables are getting exactly what they want. A genius on Reddit posted this which sums up everything that has happened perfectly:
“There is a significant population of the USA that doesn’t give a fuck about the rest of America. They just want to win at all costs to say fuck you to liberals. It doesn’t matter if it kills them, which it will if the ACA is repealed; it doesn’t matter if it financially ruins them, which it will if Trump roles back financial regulation; it doesn’t matter if it destroys America’s status as a world leader, which it will if Trump keeps his idiotic foreign policy; it doesn’t matter if their jobs are lost, which they will be as automation and globalisation continue. They simply hate the other side and don’t care if it kills them.
It’s disgusting. That is why they elected a man-child. They act like children themselves and that is all they know.”
Hopefully the Trumpublicans will kill the GOP once and for all.
I believe the CFPB has helped me get paid the bonuses I’ve been due, but that doesn’t automatically make them good. How about writing a post detailing how the CFPB works? Interview JC above? How about some data? Some serious evidence instead of ridiculous emotion?
Great topic/thread! Like others, I’ve had a very positive experience with CFPB. They’ve helped recover account bonuses and recoup fees, and basically forced communication from organizations that would otherwise ignore my request for explanations.
I don’t consider this a “political” post, at all, it behooves us all as consumers to have the CFPB supporting and speaking on behalf of us little people
I do not support phony banking watchdog Elizabeth Warren’s CFPB and believe it should be eliminated. I come to doctorofcredit.com to hear about deals, not to read about their far left politics.
Hi Pete,
As I mentioned above this is first and foremost a consumer credit website. The the CFPB is the main watch dog and regulator for consumer credit & consumer finance in general, this is an important issue.
Would you have preferred an article that simply stated the intentions of Sen. Cruz & Rep. Ratcliffe to abolish the CFPB or are you saying you didn’t want to see any article at all? I’m always interested to hear from readers.
I don’t mind seeing an article, but there is a presumption that the CFPB is a good thing, all readers should agree with this, and do something to keep Elizabeth Warren’s dream alive. The reality is, that the CFPB, its structure, and even the constitutionality of its existence, is extremely controversial. At least one federal court has already ruled that its structure is unconstitutional (see PHH Corp. vs CFBP). The CFPB has a budget of over $500 million, and very few, if any checks on its regulatory power. Sure, some people have anecdotal stories about using the CFPB to make a bank do something, but the CFPB is a quasi-government agency, run by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, and funded by American tax payers. That should give us all pause.
I have mixed history with CFPB. sometimes they just accept and ignore complaints against business that is not auto listed in their system even if such biz exists. They would just say we have to verify and it gets stuck for months and still not sent to the business. I filed complaint with eclaimsline, and their company allianz global assistance cos they lied and fraudulently denied my travel cancellation claim with Chase SR. cfpb still after 2 months didn’t sent my complaint to them and i get no help when i called.
On an off topic here if you don’t mind me asking:
I tried placing some order online and it used to automatically just leave 1 cent out of any GC. I used to pay and 1 cent will be charged on my redcard to waive the shipping but now entire amount is charged on my GC and thus no free shipping?
Any one noticed this?
This really sux. I thought they only closed the 5% loophole with GC . Now unless you pay fully with RedCard , you don’t get free shipping right? I have over $1K in GC.
I don’t have the Red Debit card but it maybe same with it as well? Red Debit card card won’t help here right?
Thanks
Jim – what a random transition… From CFPB to … I assume “How to Abuse Target GCs?” Well, any port in a storm I guess.
Stupid Cruz!
**** **** **** like this is why I can’t vote GOP.
[Mod edit, removed the c-word and some other expletives]
I don’t vote GOP either, but maybe you could find a non-sexist way to state that?
+1, edited post.
Do we really need to categorize issues as right vs left? Everyone would be better served looking at a situation with a clear mind and not being biased by whatever their party lines are. That’s really the iceberg issue here where people can’t or aren’t willing to think for themselves and sheepishly tow the line without looking what’s actually on the other end. I’m personally fed up with both sides of the crusty coin but I digress, that’s not related to this topic. What is relevant IMO is looking at this CFPB issue on it’s own and breaking it down on its own merits.
So having worked for the CFPB as a contractor in the past I can both see the benefits and weaknesses of the CPFB. What I will tell you is that many people do not understand how the CFPB works. When you send a complaint to the CFPB they do not directly do anything with that complaint outside of forwarding it to the financial institution for response and tracking the volume of complaints about different issues with different financial institutions. So in practice, they are not your advocate on an individual level. Regardless of the outcome of your specific complaint, all the CFPB is doing is passing your information on to a dedicated team that reviews the complaint. The CFPB itself does not advocate on your behalf for that individual complaint. Where the CFPB does wield power and does help the average consumer is it is aggregating the data on the types of complaints being received along with the respective financial institution. This department of the CFPB is essentially looking for trends in the data that suggest abuse or areas of concern and then they may launch investigations or write legislation to address areas that they think need more regulation. As such, only through this broader measure does the CFPB really influence individual cases and even then once a matter has reached the CFPB it is being added to database and used for trend monitoring regardless of outcome. As such, I can say that I have sent complaints to the CFPB around three or four times and only had success with one or two of the cases. However, by providing them with the data to make informed regulations, I can only hope that some of the abusive practices that some companies practice will be eliminated. With that said, I do worry about the CFPB becoming influenced by lobbyist and others within the business world as they learn to navigate the vagaries of the CFPB. For instance, some people I worked for at the CFPB said that some banks had setup special teams just to handle CFPB complaints and typically always conceded to the customer because they were afraid of enforcement action from the CFPB even though they did nothing to stop the systemic processes that resulted in the CFPB complaints to begin with. While I am typically against overburdensome regulation that inhibits businesses from succeeding by increasing costs and decreasing margins to the point that many small businesses are not able to succeed, I also see value in the greater good. For instance, when the CFPB mandated that credit card payments over the minimum payment needed to be applied to the highest interest rate first I thought this was a great consumer protection. However, at the same time I lost many of my lower APR credit cards and watched as banks repriced risk by increasing APRs by five to eight percent typically thus negating much of the positive change that was hoped for with the improved regulation. As the saying goes,… Read more »
this is an excellent, level-headed analysis. thanks for the taking the time to write that
Great analysis and perspective. Sadly, you’re better educated and knowledgeable on this subject than these politicians. This should be quoted in the main post as to not get lost in the dozens of worthless commentary.
So from what people are posting on here it seems the CFPB is helping consumers, but I haven’t read how the CFPB is harming anyone. Does anyone have any horror stories about dealing with the CFPB or has anyone had them come after them? I don’t see how they are harming anyone
But..but…big government!