{"id":303478,"date":"2021-07-20T16:19:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T13:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/outside-the-box-after-10-years-heres-how-the-cfpb-has-fared-in-protecting-consumers\/"},"modified":"2021-07-20T16:19:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T13:19:00","slug":"outside-the-box-after-10-years-heres-how-the-cfpb-has-fared-in-protecting-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/outside-the-box-after-10-years-heres-how-the-cfpb-has-fared-in-protecting-consumers\/","title":{"rendered":"#Outside the Box: After 10 years, here\u2019s how the CFPB has fared in protecting consumers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a403a41f15b7\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a403a41f15b7\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/outside-the-box-after-10-years-heres-how-the-cfpb-has-fared-in-protecting-consumers\/#Elizabeth_Warren_wants_more_focus_on_overdraft_fees_and_predatory_auto_lending\" >Elizabeth Warren wants more focus on overdraft fees and predatory auto lending<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-4' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-4'><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-4' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/outside-the-box-after-10-years-heres-how-the-cfpb-has-fared-in-protecting-consumers\/#Paul_Brandus\" >Paul Brandus<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#Outside the Box: After 10 years, here\u2019s how the CFPB has fared in protecting consumers<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"article__subhead\" itemprop=\"alternativeHeadline\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Elizabeth_Warren_wants_more_focus_on_overdraft_fees_and_predatory_auto_lending\"><\/span>\n  Elizabeth Warren wants more focus on overdraft fees and predatory auto lending<br \/>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"column column--full article__content\">\n<div class=\"article__side\">\n<div class=\"container--sticky not-active\">\n<div id=\"cx-next\" data-nosnippet>\n              <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"js-article__body\" class=\"article__body article-wrap at16-col16 barrons-article-wrap\" itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-sbid=\"WP-MKTW-0000343102\">\n<div class=\"barrons-article-ad-wrapper\">\n<div data-track=\"barrons-article-ad-wrap\" class=\"barrons-article-ad sticky_item\">\n<div class=\"barrons-main-article-ad-target sticky_target body_ad\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div data-layout=\"\n                inline\" data-layout-mobile=\"\" class=\"\n          media-object\n          type-InsetArticleReader\n              \n              inline\n  article__inset\n          article__inset--type-InsetArticleReader\n              article__inset--inline\n  \"><\/p>\n<div class=\"media-object-article-reader\">\n<div class=\"audioplayer\" data-sbid=\"WP-MKTW-0000343102\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"Listen to Article\" tabindex=\"-1\" id=\"articlereader\" data-show-title=\"false\" data-theme=\"wsj-article-reader\" data-show-header=\"false\" data-show-subscribe=\"false\" data-ads-enabled=\"true\" data-save-publication=\"false\">\n        <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>       \u201cCorruption, embezzlement, fraud,\u201d Alan Greenspan, the longtime chairman of the Federal Reserve once said, \u201care all characteristics which exist everywhere\u2026what successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p> But we keep trying, which helps explain one of the federal government\u2019s newer bureaucracies, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which is marking its 10th anniversary.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"paywall\">\n       Founded in the wake of the financial crisis \u2014nd near meltdown \u2014 of the U.S. economy between 2007 and 2009, the CFPB tries, as its name implies, to protect consumers \u201cfrom unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices and take action against companies that break the law.\u201d It also works to \u201carm people with the information, steps, and tools that they need to make smart financial decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Critics \u2014 i.e. Wall Street and Republicans \u2014 have long detested the agency, accusing it and its 1,500+ employees of having too much power, and trying to foist too many burdensome regulations on the financial services industry. The criticism has been fierce from the beginning and has never let\u00a0up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It is \u201cunaccountable\u201d and\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/SB10001424053111903554904576457931310814462?mod=article_inline\" class=\"icon none\">\u201cheaded by a single dictator,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0said then-Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby in 2011, the ranking Republican on the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Fast forward\u00a0to 2020 when, after the election of Joe Biden the question asked by the\u00a0conservative-leaning\u00a0American Banker was\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.americanbanker.com\/news\/how-far-left-will-cfpb-swing-in-2021\" class=\"icon none\">\u201cHow Far Left Will the CFPB Swing in 2021?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Yet the industry has raked in tens of billions annually since the agency stood up, including last year, when \u201cWall Street profits soared during the first half of 2020, amid the worst pandemic in a century,\u201d\u00a0said one MarketWatch headline, for example. This year, blowout earnings reports, a slew of dividend hikes and steep raises and bonuses to employees further undercuts the notion that the industry is hurting from CFPB efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Banks got more favorable treatment during the administration of President Donald Trump\u2014he killed, for example, a CFPB rule\u00a0that made it easier for consumers to sue financial firms (the firms believed it was too heavy-handed), and sought to roll back <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/files.consumerfinance.gov\/f\/documents\/cfpb_payday_nprm-2019-delay.pdf.\" class=\"icon none\">efforts to curb predatory lending.<\/a>\u00a0But regulations have tightened since his departure; three weeks ago, President Joe Biden signed a bill\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.banking.senate.gov\/newsroom\/majority\/president-signs-van-hollen-brown-legislation-to-strike-down-trump-era-rent-a-bank-rule\" class=\"icon none\">striking down the ability of\u00a0predatory lenders to gouge their customers.<\/a>\u00a0Biden, through his Education Department, has also displeased lenders by erasing some $1.5 billion in school loans; the\u00a0White House has signaled that more cancellations will likely\u00a0follow.<\/p>\n<p>Has the CFPB been successful? Judging by its first objective \u2014 to protect consumers\u00a0from unfair, deceptive or abusive practices\u00a0\u2014 it\u2019s reasonable to say that there have been results.\u00a0Some $14.4 billion in consumer relief and another $1.7 billion in civil penalties have been won since the agency stood up, according to the CFPB\u2019s acting director Dave Uejio.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve helped millions of consumers and stopped a variety of egregious practices,\u201d Uejio said in a conference call on Monday.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Most of these wins have escaped public attention, but not its two biggest victories. In 2012, the CFPB ordered Capital One Bank to return some $140 million to consumers for pressuring them to pay for \u201cadd-on products\u201d like payment protection and credit monitoring when they activated credit cards.<\/p>\n<div id=\"cx-membership-tile\"><\/div>\n<p>Four years later, it helped expose widespread fraud at Wells Fargo &amp; Co., whose employees had secretly\u00a0opened millions of phony bank and credit card accounts in customers\u2019 names. The bank was ordered to pay money back to victims who were charged fees on those ghost accounts.\u00a0That fall, the bank paid $185 million to settle charges against it, and the bank\u2019s board forced CEO Officer John Stumpf to resign and forfeit $41 million.<\/p>\n<p>But that was peanuts compared to the $1 billion fine the CFPB slammed the bank with in 2018 for scheming to force customers into car insurance deals and charging mortgage borrowers unfair fees.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read:<\/strong> Here\u2019s what Wells Fargo did to trigger a $1 billion fine<\/p>\n<p>Aside from these high-profile cases, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, (D-MA), who was instrumental in the CFPB\u2019s formation, said the agency hasn\u2019t gotten a lot of attention because much of its work has been focused on helping Americans who are less savvy financially and thus more vulnerable to being taken advantage of.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m particularly bothered by overdraft fees, which squeeze every last penny out of customers who are struggling,\u201d she said. She also singled out predatory auto lending \u2014 the third biggest category of household debt behind mortgages and student loans \u2014 \u201cand the area where we now see the most predatory tricks and traps, especially against consumers of color.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read:<\/strong> Black Americans suffered the most under Trump-era consumer-protection agency, study finds<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also: <\/strong>Wells Fargo and other banks charged college students $27 million in fees, buried CFPB report reveals<\/p>\n<p>One problem with this never-ending <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/game\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"7\" title=\"Game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">game<\/a> of cops and robbers is that the bad guys always seem to be a step ahead. For all the CFPB\u2019s successes, consider the following two examples:\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul class=\"articleList\">\n<li>\n      Consumers lost some $4 billion in internet scams last year, according to the FBI<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n      Identity theft is booming. According to Aite Group, an intelligence and data provider to the financial services industry, losses to Americans rose 42% in 2020 from the year before reaching $712.4 billion. This type of crime may be different from policing payday loan artists and big banks, but it\u2019s a financial crime nonetheless and the CFPB is, after all, called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Scams are also proliferating in the largely unregulated cryptocurrency market, another area where the regulators are playing catch up. Another government agency, the Federal Trade Commission, says since last fall alone, it has gotten complaints from 7,000 who claimed to have been fleeced out of some $80 million, up some 1,000% year-over-year.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, this calls to mind the second expressed objective of the CFPB: to \u201carm people with the information, steps, and tools that they need to make smart financial decisions.\u201d I\u2019ve no doubt that some of those 7,000 people and some of that $80 million that went poof was the result of scams. But I\u2019m guessing that some of it is also due to individuals making poor decisions, succumbing to greed and all the rest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Albeit well-meaning, it\u2019s bureaucratic conceit to imagine that millions of people can easily be given the smarts to handle their money better and avoid falling prey to crooks and sharpies. Perhaps this is something that should start long before people start getting credit cards, taking out loans and all the rest? A Charles Schwab report notes that \u201conly 21 states currently require high-school students to complete a personal finance course.\u201d That\u2019s just asking for trouble down the road \u2014 the kind of trouble the CFPB is trying to stamp out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Wall Street has deep pockets and lots of friends in Washington. The little guy is short on both. Any government agency that tries to help the latter is OK by me.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"byline article__byline\">\n<p>      <span>By<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"author  hasMenu\" data-scrim='{\"type\":\"author\",\"header\":\"Paul Brandus\",\"subhead\":\"The Wall Street Journal\",\"list\":[]}' itemscope itemprop=\"author\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/Person\">\n<h4 itemprop=\"name\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Paul_Brandus\"><\/span>Paul Brandus<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/news\/story.asp?guid=%7B20C05575-04D4-B545-753C-3E83678F8132%7D&#038;siteid=rss&#038;rss=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#Outside the Box: After 10 years, here\u2019s how the CFPB has fared in protecting consumers&#8221; Elizabeth Warren wants more focus on overdraft fees and predatory auto lending \u201cCorruption, embezzlement, fraud,\u201d Alan Greenspan, the longtime chairman of the Federal Reserve once said, \u201care all characteristics which exist everywhere\u2026what successful economies do is keep it to a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":303479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}