Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

Interview about CFPB complaint database data

In May, we posted a link to an article by Charlotte Haendler of Southern Methodist University (SMU) – SMU Cox School of Business and Rawley Heimer of Arizona State University (ASU) – W.P. Carey School of Business, The Hidden Costs of Financial Services: Consumer Complaints and Financial Restitution. Alan Kaplinsky interviewed them for Ballard Spahr’s […]

CNBC: Student loan bills could double for some borrowers as Biden-era relief expires

Here, by Annie Nova. Here’s a table from the article with some numbers. SAVE is the program that’s essentially ending on August 1; IBR is an alternative that borrowers can enroll in. Estimated monthly student loan payments by income bracket Income-Based Repayment (IBR) vs. SAVE The table shows the changes in monthly payments for student […]

The myth of the bipartisan commission under Trump

According to American Banker’s Claire Williams, in an article headlined Republicans gear up for Dodd-Frank rollback, Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks said during a hearing yesterday “that he would be open to the idea of a bipartisan commission at the CFPB.” But President Trump claims the right to fire Democratic commissioners on so-called bipartisan commissions, even […]

AP’s Ken Sweet: Employees at the nation’s consumer financial watchdog say it’s become toothless under Trump

Here. The article makes it look like the administration is dedicated to keeping federal employees from working. So much for the promise to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse. Some excerpts: * * * Employees are reluctant even to talk to one another, out of fear that a conversation between two employees would be considered a […]

The American Prospect’s heartbreaking CFPB update: looks like a boom for scammers

By Maureen Tkacik and James Baratta, it’s captioned Hardly Workin’. It covers a lot of ground, but here’s one excerpt: In the meantime, formal entries into the CFPB’s consumer complaints database have soared, suggesting that the business of junk fees, predatory terms, and routine swindles is booming just as loudly as the Prospect has been predicting it would since […]

Call for Abstracts for the Berkeley Annual Consumer Law Scholars Conference

We received the following call for abstracts (apologies for the formatting issues): We are pleased to announce the Eighth Annual Consumer Law Scholars Conference will be held in Berkeley on Thursday and Friday, March 5-6, 2026! Please save the date!  The purpose of the CLSC is to support in-progress scholarship, foster a community of consumer […]

Two recent essays attack the administration’s consumer protection moves

Seth Frotman & Tara Mikkilineni have written The Trump Administration Wants to Reboot Redlining at the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology’s Jolt Digest. Here’s an excerpt: [T] he Vought CFPB[] . . . . has quietly made a series of moves that would enable an unholy alliance of Big Tech and financial institutions to digitally […]