17-02-2025, 03:12 PM
17-02-2025, 04:17 PM
NEW YORK (AP) — To President Donald Trump, it’s a hotbed of “waste, fraud and abuse” whose only purpose is to “destroy people” and whose staff amounts to a “vicious group.”
To Jonathon Booth, it’s simply the agency that helped him get US$17 back.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is in the crosshairs of a White House that has halted its work, closed its headquarters and fired scores of its workers. But to many who have turned to the agency, it has been an effective problem-solver that fought abusive businesses when no one else would.
“This is the core of consumer protection – someone willing to help with stuff that’s small enough that no one would sue over,” says Booth, a 34-year-old professor from Boulder, Colorado, who filed a complaint with CFPB in October when his credit card company wouldn’t remove an errant late fee. “If there’s no one watching, if the risk of getting caught goes down, more companies will bend the law to make money.”
A few weeks after Booth turned to CFPB, his case was closed and his account credited.
Even as Trump and his cost-cutting czar, the billionaire Elon Musk, have demonized and neutered the agency, its defenders tell success stories of its work. Created under the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and beginning its work in 2011, CFPB says it has fielded more than 7.7 million complaints and returned nearly US$20 billion to consumers in just over 13 years of existence.
To Jonathon Booth, it’s simply the agency that helped him get US$17 back.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is in the crosshairs of a White House that has halted its work, closed its headquarters and fired scores of its workers. But to many who have turned to the agency, it has been an effective problem-solver that fought abusive businesses when no one else would.
“This is the core of consumer protection – someone willing to help with stuff that’s small enough that no one would sue over,” says Booth, a 34-year-old professor from Boulder, Colorado, who filed a complaint with CFPB in October when his credit card company wouldn’t remove an errant late fee. “If there’s no one watching, if the risk of getting caught goes down, more companies will bend the law to make money.”
A few weeks after Booth turned to CFPB, his case was closed and his account credited.
Even as Trump and his cost-cutting czar, the billionaire Elon Musk, have demonized and neutered the agency, its defenders tell success stories of its work. Created under the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and beginning its work in 2011, CFPB says it has fielded more than 7.7 million complaints and returned nearly US$20 billion to consumers in just over 13 years of existence.