Gutted Consumer Financial Protection Bureau leaves some without credit help

Cuts to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are starting to hit Americans’ credit as they face difficulty removing erroneous entries, costing some housing and loans. Several oversight agencies and nonprofits suggested the agency is on life support as Americans are left to resolve creditors’ mistakes.

An investigation by ProPublica found that the reduction in force at the CFPB has led to far fewer complaints against TransUnion and Experian being resolved with relief. They are two of three credit bureaus Americans rely on to make major purchases, loans, secure housing and other commodities.

The nonprofit reported that Equifax didn’t experience the same decline as it entered a consent agreement with the CFPB to several reforms and ongoing oversight.

Acting Director Russ Vought sought to cut employees, rethink the agency’s mission and overall restructure it to become a smaller “more efficient operation,” according to a Jan. 27 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Vought terminated employees, issued stop-work orders, closed supervisory examinations and ended enforcement cases. The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents CFPB employees, sued Vought in 2025 to halt the cuts.

According to the CFPB, it received 5.1 million complaints on credit reporting from March 9, 2025, to Monday. The next-largest category was debt collection, with 294,809 complaints.

“The thing that is making them do any kind of effort is a lawsuit or a regulator, and now we don’t have the regulator,” Chi Chi Wu, director of consumer reporting at the National Consumer Law Center, told ProPublica. The center is a plaintiff in the NTEU’s lawsuit.

Senators on the minority Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs said in a Feb. 9 report that the cuts cost Americans $19 billion in one year.

Ranking Member Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., crafted the agency in 2007 to give people a resource to seek reprieve and oversight for thousands of financial products. Congress authorized its creation in 2010, as the country began recovering from the Great Recession.

“This new bureau is based on the simple idea that if the playing field is level and families can see what’s going on, they will have better tools to make better choices,” Warren said in 2010.

President Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers countered Democrats’ report. They said in a Feb. 17 report that the CFPB has cost consumers at least $237 billion since its 2011 creation. The group noted that the agency has imposed a “regulatory burden,” which drove up compliance and liability costs that financial institutions passed onto consumers.

It contested the CFPB claim that it saved consumers $21 billion since its inception.

“Through a combination of regulation, supervision, and the persistent threat of enforcement, the CFPB has increased the cost of credit for both lenders and borrowers,” the council said. “Moreover, instances of regulatory overreach and actions that bypass the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) introduce additional costs and uncertainty into credit markets that can further push lenders to retreat or limit offerings.”

CFPB and consumers

The independent agency has been a major resource for Americans to resolve disputes with financial institutions and educate themselves about loans, bank accounts, credit cards, credit reports, debt collection, mortgages and student loans, to name a few.

Complaints lodged with the CFPB accused companies like Equifax, Westlake Services, Experian and other credit reporting agencies of improper credit inquiries, issues with fraud alerts and incorrect information on personal reports.

“Someone has used my personal information to obtain loans and credit cards,” a Floridian wrote in a Jan. 7 complaint against Equifax. “I have no idea how the theft took place. I also have no knowledge of any suspects. I did not receive any money, goods, or services as a result of identity theft.”

ProPublica reported that Equifax had settled with the CFPB in January 2025, agreeing to pay $15 million for improper investigations regarding errors on credit reports.

Issues with TransUnion weren’t resolved when Trump took office. The CFPB ended lawsuits and agreements with the credit agencies over claims of cheating customers, failures to place and remove credit freezes. Several complaints sent to the CFPB accused TransUnion of improper use or incorrect information in reports.

A Miami-Dade County resident filed a complaint against TransUnion on Feb. 9, asserting that there were credit inquiries they didn’t recognize and that lenders couldn’t verify. Despite it, they wrote that the inquiries remained in their report.

”Each creditor confirmed they can not locate any application, account, or documentation showing that I requested credit, and they can not provide any written or verbal authorization from me,” the person wrote. “Because there is no valid basis for these hard inquiries, they must be treated as unauthorized and removed.”

Reforming the government agency is a hot topic among various groups. Both left-leaning and right-leaning organizations have made cases for either dismantling or saving the CFPB. Center-right Cato Institute argued in February 2025 that the agency replicates the efforts of federal financial regulators. The center-left Brennan Center for Justice said the agency protects people from deceptive and abusive practices that “led to the 2008 financial crisis.”