The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created after the financial crisis to protect Americans from being ripped off by financial firms.
Now, President Trump's interim appointee to run the bureau, Mick Mulvaney, is making radical changes to deter the agency from aggressively pursuing its mission.
The CFPB on Monday unveiled
a new strategic plan to that end. In a message accompanying the plan for the years 2018 through 2022, Mulvaney wrote, "we have committed to fulfill the Bureau's statutory responsibilities, but go no further." The plan says the bureau should be "acting with humility and moderation."
This new direction is consistent with Mulvaney's other memos and statements and formalizes his plans for defanging the watchdog bureau and reshaping its mission, according to insiders and experts that NPR has talked to.
The CFPB is considered a powerful and independent watchdog. But many Republicans have wanted to shut it down since Day 1 because they think it's too powerful. Mulvaney is one of them. As a congressman, Mulvaney called the agency a "sick sad joke." He drafted legislation to abolish it. So people at the bureau were shocked when the president appointed him to run this consumer protection agency.
Within weeks of coming on board, Mulvaney has worked to make the watchdog agency less aggressive. Under his leadership, the CFPB
delayed a new payday lending regulation from going into effect and dropped an investigation into one payday lender that contributed to Mulvaney's campaign. In another move that particularly upset some staffers, the new boss also dropped a lawsuit against an alleged online loan shark called Golden Valley Lending. The suit says the lender illegally charges people up to 950 percent interest rates. It took CFPB staffers years to build the case.
People like Julie Bonenfant, 27, who does administrative work for the city of Detroit. Last year was a tough one for her — she broke up with her boyfriend, her car was stolen and she got behind on her rent. She found Golden Valley Lending online and and took out a loan, but she says she had no idea what she was getting herself into.
"I was literally facing eviction because I was so behind on my rent and I had no idea where I was going to come up with the money and it was just really rough," Bonenfant says. "It was just misleading. ... The way it was presented was ... I was going to make four large payments and then be done."
But after those four payments, the lender continued to take money directly out of her checking account. When she asked why, the lender told her she had agreed online to a lot more payments.
Bonenfant sent NPR a screenshot from the Golden Valley website. It says on her $900 loan, her scheduled payments in less than 12 months will total $3,735, or more than four times what she borrowed.
Bonenfant has so far paid more than $3,000 to Golden Valley and rung up more than $1,000 in overdraft fees at her bank.
For her part, Bonenfant still hasn't paid off her debt to Golden Valley. And she feels betrayed by the president, whose appointee dropped the lawsuit.
"To be honest I'm really mad, really pissed, because I actually voted for Trump," Bonenfant says. "So knowing that his guy threw out this case that affects people like me, I feel kind of like stupid — just kind of like betrayed."
