Americans for Financial Reform

News Category: Blog

Blog: Predatory Fintechs Score as Trump-Musk CFPB Caves on Lawsuit

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has been largely shut down by Elon Musk’s team and Acting Director Russell Vought, pulled the plug on a lawsuit against an online lender, SoLo Funds, that the agency had alleged was deceiving borrowers and imposing deceptive fees on more than half a million borrowers.

Blog: What Will Elon Musk and His Tech Bros Do With Your Personal Data?

Last week, newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent granted billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team access to all of the federal government payments data. Musk’s team of tech bros are currently upending and disrupting the entire federal government without clear statutory authority or congressional approval.

Blog: Crypto Fraud Costs Investors $5 billion

Last December, Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the crypto lender and trading platform Celsius Network, pled guilty to federal fraud charges and agreed to surrender $48 million in illegal gains from his schemes. Mashinsky admitted he misled customers about the safety of their investment accounts and used their funds to manipulate the price of Celsius’s in-house token.

Blog: CFPB returns nearly $2 billion to victims of credit repair ripoff

Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) put $1.8 billion back into the pockets of 4 million people fleeced by credit repair companies Lexington Law and CreditRepair.com. This is one more example of the CFPB doing its job to hold corporate scofflaws accountable, stand up for working people, and get financial justice for people who were ripped off or scammed by predatory finance.