In response to reports that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) dismissed its lawsuit against Capital One for defrauding consumers out of more than $2 billion in interest payments on savings accounts, NCRC released the following statement:
“The dismissal action today from the CFPB sends a signal that big corporations can bamboozle consumers and suffer no consequences. The lawsuit would have held Capital One accountable for deceptive practices following their acquisition of ING Direct,” said Jesse Van Tol, President and CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “Now, as they attempt to buy another bank, the CFPB has let them off the hook and opened the door to future customer abuses. The CFPB was created to protect consumers and today’s dismissal is a betrayal of that mission.”
The timing is clearly suspicious. Would this have anything to do with the typical m.o. of this current administration, which is: our way or the highway? An ultimatum? Which is to say: give us the sorts of results we want our we will fire all of you and wipe the acronym CFPB from the payroll. Those are precisely the no-ethics hardball game this current crop of “leaders” are playing. And they do this because they have been essentially paid to do it–political donations, election promotion, and so on–by many of the very same banking and financial corporations that are or have been targets of investigation and rulings by the CFPB. Yes, the timing is suspicious. I would expect more such rulings in the future, and therefore CFPB to stick around in that future.