The Threat to the CFPB – and How You Can Help

February 12, 2025

The Administration is moving to illegally shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The gravity of the attack cannot be overstated, endangering the entire economy as well as the critical work the consumer law community does to protect families from financial ruin and honest businesses from unscrupulous competitors. 

The CFPB was created by Congress to fix problems that caused over eight million people to lose their jobs and almost four million families to lose their homes during the Great Recession. The CFPB saves homes, stops fraud that ruins lives, and enforces key laws, securing $21 billion in relief for over 200 million people harmed by credit bureaus, big banks, debt collectors and predatory lenders.

It is critical that consumers and advocates reach out to their elected representatives to make the case for the essential role of the CFPB in protecting people from unfair, deceptive, and abusive financial practices.

The illegal actions to shut down the CFPB halt work to safeguard people’s private information, protect bank customers when hackers raid their accounts, and help families save their homes when they’re unfairly rushed to foreclosure. The CFPB now appears poised to roll over and play dead in pending lawsuits by big banks and credit bureaus, letting them overturn new rules returning $5 billion in excessive overdraft fees to struggling families and removing medical debt from credit reports.

In addition to contacting Congress, we are urging those of you on the ground to submit letters to the editor in your local papers to urge your Representatives to oppose efforts to shut down the CFPB. Writing a letter to the editor (LTE) of your local or regional newspaper is a quick and effective way to reach a targeted audience. Here are tips to help you write and place an effective letter.

Thank you for joining us in this fight.