'Open season for scammers': Watchdog sounds the alarm on new Trump cuts

The Guardian reports New York City comptroller Brad Lander is “raising the alarm” about the Trump administration’s shutdown of a federal agency overseeing consumer financial protection laws, warning it is now “open season” for fraudsters.

Ladner, who is running for mayor, said the virtual shuttering of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will leave Americans more vulnerable to scams and predatory lending, and said state and local governments must now step up and do the work President Donald Trump abandoned.

“Without the outreach and investigations, casemaking and prosecutions, I fear it will be open season, and these bad actors will just ramp things up again, knowing they’re not likely to get caught,” Lander told Guardian.

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Until recently, the CFPB was the American consumer’s strongest ally against predatory lenders. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) proposed the agency in 2007 in response to the U.S. subprime mortgage meltdown and the subsequent worldwide financial crisis. In 2022, the CFPB hit Wells Fargo with a $3.7 billion fine after discovering the company had illegally assessed fees and interest charges on consumers’ loans and wrongly repossessed their properties. It also ordered Navy Federal Credit Union to pay more than $95 million over illegal surprise overdraft fees charged to military service members, veterans and consumers, and it banned Navient from servicing federal student loans after slapping the company with a $120 million fine for widespread failures.

Republicans have long accused the agency of regulatory overreach, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired nearly 1,500 members of its force. Those layoffs are now being disputed in court.

In the meantime, Lander wants to use city resources to monitor for deceptive lending practices, require fee transparency and help consumers with potential litigation.

“Some people may not be aware of what the CFPB does, but the authority of the bureau impacted everyone, whether you are someone who is taking out a loan for a car or a mortgage,” Lander said.

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Read the full Guardian article at this link.