Trump administration removing CFPB complaint narratives

Protect Borrowers has the story, headlined Trump CFPB Buries Financial Companies’ Abuses. So much for the claim that Trump is the most transparent president ever. This will reduce freedom of choice, something the administration has claimed to champion in other contexts, for consumers who want to avoid patronizing businesses that other consumers have found unsatisfactory. It will also make life more difficult for some journalists and scholars, two groups that seem not to enjoy the Trump administration’s respect. If, as I suspect, the information will still be available through a Freedom of Information request, what this will do is make it harder for people to obtain information without actually preventing those who are motivated and know how to make a FOAI request from getting it. It will also delay access to the information; Pro Publica reports that it’s become difficult to even make FOIA requests in this administration, much less get responses to them. Before the CFPB publishes consumer complaints, it has always verified with the company that the consumer was in fact a customer of the company, something I think review sites do not generally do, and that makes the CFPB complaint database especially helpful.