A Valentine for Payday Predators
Musk's presidency showing his love for fraud and thievery
Elon Musk and his team of lackeys are taking an ax to the nation’s top consumer protector.
An update to the dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) indicates the real-world impacts:
The CFPB has “canceled nearly all contracts that underlie” the bureau’s consumer complaint function, the union said. That operation fields roughly 350,000 consumer complaints a month, the union said.
The hotline that consumers can call to submit complaints went offline, the union said, “despite Congress’s clear command that the CFPB ‘establish a single, toll-free telephone number’ for use in collecting complaints.” That violates the bureau’s mandate, the union argued. The CFPB also canceled the contract for contractors processing mailed-in complaints, the union said.
Further, the bureau’s escalated case management team, which fields time-sensitive matters such as foreclosures, is not working, per the stop-work order Vought issued Monday, the union said, calling the development “particularly devastating.”
350,000 complaints about financial malpractice each month.
Now unanswered.
A hotline for complaints: Shut down.
House about to be foreclosed on - even if the lender may have it all wrong? Too bad.
This is what DOGE is about - not efficiency - except for creating the most efficient way for financial bad actors to obtain more cash.
If these Big Banks and smaller-time payday predators don’t have to answer to anyone, they can more efficiently concoct schemes to extract cash from vulnerable consumers.
If this is winning, Donald Trump is right - it’s so much winning, I’m tired of it.
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So, with CFPB shut down, what do you do if you have a complaint about a bad actor in the financial marketplace?
First, start with your state’s Attorney General.
Attorneys General typically have consumer protection divisions and can apply relevant state laws to your situation. Sometimes, if an AG asks, a company will answer.
Second, let your Member of Congress know. One, they may be able to assist with a resolution. But also, it is important for Congress to know their constituents value the work formerly performed by CFPB. Congress can rescue the consumer champion from the DOGE Death Star . . . if they want to.