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As families struggle with debt, junk fees, and the cost of getting by, Trump’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is making their financial hardships harder for the public to see. The agency has stopped publishing new consumer complaint narratives, cutting off a vital source of information about how banks, lenders, debt collectors, and credit reporting companies treat the people whose money they control. Since 2015, the CFPB has published 3.8 million of these accounts in consumers’ own words. Those stories helped the public understand the problems behind the numbers, from mortgage servicing failures to credit reporting errors that people could not get corrected. Now, previously published narratives have been moved into a separate archive, while new stories are kept out of public view. The financial industry benefits when peoples’ experiences become harder to find and patterns of abuse become harder to expose. In defending its decision, the CFPB even complained that publishing consumers’ accounts “needlessly harms companies’ reputations.” The agency created to protect people from financial abuse is using corporate reputations as a reason to silence them. Americans for Financial Reform is fighting back. Following our campaign demanding that the CFPB keep consumer complaints public, we have filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the internal communications, decision documents, and analyses behind this attack on transparency. The CFPB has acknowledged our request. We’re pressing for the records that could expose how this decision was made and what officials relied on to justify it.
We know that exposing these decisions can help force the CFPB to back down. Earlier this year, the agency stripped thousands of educational posts, press releases, and other materials from its website. Our team raised the alarm, investigative reporting brought public attention to the purge, and senators demanded answers. Under mounting scrutiny, the CFPB restored access to those materials. That earlier fight showed why sustained watchdog work matters. Identifying what disappeared, documenting the damage, and making sure journalists and lawmakers understood it helped turn an administrative action into a public accountability fight. We’re bringing that same determination to the attack on consumer complaint narratives. The consequences reach far beyond a government website. When a family is fighting a wrongful debt or trying to save its home, seeing other people describe similar problems can reveal a broader pattern. Public access also helps researchers and reporters investigate corporate conduct and gives policymakers information they need to demand answers. Your support sustains the research, public education, and advocacy that make this work possible. We will keep challenging efforts to bury people’s experiences and pushing for a financial system where corporations must answer for the harm they cause. Families living through financial hardship deserve to be heard, and the companies profiting from their struggles deserve scrutiny. Let’s keep fighting for financial justice. - Tom. Tom Feltner (he/him)
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