Trump’s Consumer Financial Protection Agenda-or Lack Thereof-Has Already Cost Americans More Than $18 Billion

By Allison Preiss, Senior Fellow, Student Borrower Protection Center

Allison Preiss is a Senior Fellow at the Student Borrower Protection Center, where this blog first appeared. She is also a former Senior Advisor to the Director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Donald Trump swept back into office promising to lower costs for Americans: at a Wilkes-Barre campaign rally, he pledged: “Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down and we will make America affordable again. We’re going to make it affordable again.” But the attacks carried out by the president on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and recent moves from Congress to undo CFPB actions that would have capped exploitative junk fees has instead cost Americans billions of dollars.

Here are just a few of the ways Trump and the Republican-led Congress have raised costs on Americans:

Teaming Up with Big Banks to Charge Americans $32 Credit Card Late Fees: Costing Americans $10 Billion Annually.

After finding that very large financial institutions were exploiting a loophole to charge Americans $14 billion every year in credit card late fees - typically at $32 a pop - the CFPB took action to cap late fees at $8, a number that the CFPB estimated would sufficiently cover collection costs for card issuers. Over the years, many banks came to rely on credit card late fees - which cardholders can incur for being even one day late on their payment - as an easy source of revenue; the CFPB noted that “for some large credit card companies, late fees are a major driver of their profit model.”

The CFPB’s action would have resulted in $10 billion in annual savings for Americans, or an average savings of $220 per year for the more than 45 million people who are charged late fees. Big banks immediately sued the CFPB, and after Trump’s allies took over, the agency teamed up with industry to get a conservative court to dismiss the fee limit. Now, thanks to Trump’s CFPB, big banks will continue to be allowed to charge Americans these outrageous fees and even be allowed to continue raising this fee in the years to come.

Allowing Big Banks to Rip Americans Off with Huge Bank Overdraft Fees: Costing Americans $5 Billion Annually.

For many big financial institutions, overdraft fees–like credit card late fees–have become massive profit centers; in recent years, the CFPB took enforcement actions against major financial institutions, including Wells Fargo, Regions Bank, and Navy Federal Credit Union for illegal actions designed to increase their haul of overdraft fees from their customers. And as recently as 2019, big banks–with Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase at the front–roped in a whopping $12.6 billion every year in overdraft fees. Policy changes at banks, many of which came after the CFPB announced a focus on rooting out exploitative junk fees, reduced this figure to about $5.8 billion every year, including nonsufficient (NSF) fees.

To protect consumer’s pocketbooks, the CFPB took further action to bring down overdraft costs for Americans, finalizing a rule that would have capped fees at $5. The CFPB noted that its action would have added another $5 billion in savings for Americans, or $225 per household that pays overdraft fees. But with enthusiastic support from bank lobbyists, the Republican-led Congress overturned the CFPB’s overdraft rule, which cleared the way for big banks to continue charging Americans $35 overdraft fees. Some financial institutions charge this $35 fee even when their customer overdraws their account by just a few pennies or dollars.

Dropping 22 Pending Enforcement Actions Against Lawbreakers: Costing Americans at Least $3 Billion.

As the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) and the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) have detailed, Trump’s CFPB has permanently dismissed 22 of the Bureau’s public enforcement actions that were pending at the time Trump took office, pardoning egregious repeat offender banks and corporations and sending the message across the financial industry that lawbreaking and corporate misconduct will be tolerated.

These corporate pardons involved more than $3 billion in harm to Americans, including a case against banking behemoth Capital One for cheating savings account holders out of $2 billion in interest. Another pardon went to Early Warning Services (EWS)—the parent company of popular peer-to-peer app Zelle and three of EWS’ owner banks, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase, for causing Americans to lose nearly $1 billion due to fraud on the Zelle network.

Redress Payouts to Borrowers for Navient’s Lawbreaking Gone MIA: Costing Americans $100 Million.

Earlier this year, the Student Borrower Protection Center sounded the alarm about the whereabouts of $100 million in restitution checks owed to Americans as a result of the CFPB’s enforcement action taken against student loan servicing behemoth Navient. Acting CFPB Director and Trump loyalist Russell Vought and his team have halted the vast majority of meaningful work at the CFPB since taking over. Reuters reported in March 2025 that “without authorization from the agency, the payouts cannot go forward” despite the fact that the CFPB is under a court order to distribute the money to harmed student loan borrowers. Reuters also reported at the time that the whereabouts of other CFPB-ordered redress from cases involving American Honda Finance Corporation, TD Bank, and CashApp operator Block was unknown.

Stealthily Letting Toyota Motor Credit and Electronic Money Services Corporation Wise, Inc. Off the Hook for a Range of Illegal Activities: Costing Americans up to $50 Million.

In 2023, the CFPB ordered Toyota Motor Credit Corporation to pay $60 million–including $48 million in consumer redress and $12 million in penalties–for operating an illegal scheme to prevent borrowers from cancelling product bundles that increased their monthly car loan payments. The company also withheld refunds or refunded incorrect amounts on the bundled products and knowingly tarnished consumers’ credit reports with false information. In May 2025, without reason or public notice, the CFPB terminated Toyota’s consent order, specifically allowing the company off the hook for paying its consumer redress they were owed. The company and the CFPB have so far failed to clearly answer questions from the media as to whether the company has paid any part of the $48 million in consumer redress.

A few days later, the CFPB similarly amended a consent order with Wise, a global electronic money services corporation, that resulted from violations related to its its use of deceptive marketing disclosures relating to ATM fees, leading to ATM fee overcharges, as well as its failure to comply with Electronic Fund Transfer Act. The Bureau reduced Wise’s civil money penalty from over $2 million to $44,955. Civil penalty fund penalties flow into a victims relief fund for scammed and defrauded individuals of illegal conduct nationwide. These actions have robbed Americans of up to approximately $50 million in redress that they would otherwise be entitled to.

Together, these actions reveal the lie at the center of the Trumpist pitch on the economy: rather than lowering costs for working people, President Trump and his allies are taking nearly $20 billion owed to families and giving it back to Wall Street, Big Tech, and corporate scammers.