The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been operating for seven years. During that time, it has recovered 12 billion dollars for nearly 30 million Americans. The CFPB has done all that good for consumers through its enforcement actions. I will highlight three of the enforcement actions taken by the CFPB on behalf of us.
On June 21, 2017, the CFPB ordered Citibank to pay student loan borrowers 3.75 million dollars for student loan servicing failures. Citibank was also fined 2.75 million dollars and ordered to stop its abusive practices. Here is how the CFPB described Citibank’s conduct.
Citibank misled borrowers into believing that they were not eligible for a valuable tax deduction on interest paid on certain student loans. The company also incorrectly charged late fees and added interest to the student loan balances of borrowers who were still in school and eligible to defer their loan payments. Citibank also misled consumers about how much they had to pay in their monthly bills and failed to disclose required information after denying borrowers’ requests to release loan cosigners.
On April 9,2014, the CFPB punished Bank of America for illegal credit card practices. The CFPB made Bank of America pay consumers an estimated 727 million dollars and fined the bank 20 million dollars. Below are some of the violations that resulted in Bank of America getting fined.
- Billed consumers for services they didn’t receive
- Unfairly charged consumers for interest and fees
- Failed to provide credit monitoring services consumers bought
On September 8, 2016, Wells Fargo was fined 100 million dollars for its employees using the names of customers to open fake accounts. Wells Fargo also had to reimburse every customer for any money they lost as a result of the fake accounts.