“The bureau has curtailed abusive debt collection practices, reformed mortgage lending, publicized and investigated hundreds of thousands of complaints from aggrieved customers of financial institutions, and extracted nearly $12,000,000,000 for 29,000,000 consumers in refunds and canceled debts.”
In addition, the Consumer Financial Protections Bureau has attempted to work with Department of Education to improve student loan market and to regulate the payday loan industry, previously unregulated.
Here’s why regulations are needed: Without their knowledge, payday borrowers could end up paying $2,000 for a $500 loan. US News & World report described one lender’s process: “Nearly all borrowers … were defaulted into the so-called renewal option, which began with a series of ‘renewal fees’ costing 30 percent of the original amount borrowed. With each fee payment, borrowers would incur another renewal fee of 30 percent of the principal. Four payments later, they would wake up to discover that they had paid back 120 percent of the original amount – without putting a dent in the balance. By these means, someone who had taken out a $500 loan would end up making nearly $2,000 in payments!”
SOURCE:
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/articles/2016-03-18/scott-tuckers-payday-loan-scam-spotlights-industry-wide-lending-abuses
New York Times, Sept 1 2017