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The destruction of the Trump administration of a consumer surveillance agency will end up harming veterans and the active members of the armed forces that are vulnerable to predatory banking and credit practices, according to a new report of public interest groups.

The Consumer Financial Protection Office has been investigating a growing number of complaints from veterans who say that banks and credit card companies will launch them in recent years. But the White House has tried to close the CFPB and disburse it while the Trump administration pursues the draconian cuts in the federal government.

Those who serve or serve their country face unique risks that make them “objectives for inflated scams and prices”, including higher rates in cars than the general population, the report of the EE PIRG Education Fund. UU. And Frontier Group found.

“The members of the United States Service, veterans and their families have greatly benefited from the work of the CFPB,” the authors write, noting that the agency has prosecuted 400,000 complaints from those groups since 2011. “To protect those they serve, policy formulators must protect the CFPB.”

The Congress created the CFPB following the financial crisis of 2008, with the protection of consumers of abuse by banks, credit cooperatives, payment lenders and mortgage administrators, among others. Part of the agency’s responsibilities is to enforce the Military loan actwhich includes specific protections for members of the active service service and their families, such as the limits of loan rates.

“The members of the service and all Americans could pay a price with the dismantling of the CFPB.”

– Mike Litt, US PIRG

Since 2011, the CFPB has recovered more than $ 350 million on behalf of the service members and veterans who said they were exploited, according to the report.

Mike Litt, one of the co -authors of the report, said that the idea of ​​protecting those who served their country has baked in the CFPB mission. When someone files a complaint against a bank or another company, the CFPB invites them to notice if they have links with the army.

“The members of the service and all Americans could pay a price with the dismantling of the CFPB,” consumer campaign director, the director of the US PIRG consumption campaign, told News themezone. “In the case of complaints from the service members, what we found is that almost 1 in 4 complaints resulted in some type of relief, whether monetary or not monetary,” such as the credit report of someone who is solved.

Litt said that the circumstances of the life of the members of the active service service can make them more susceptible to predatory behavior. For example, they tend to be young, they move a lot they often have to handle their finances while they are abroad. It is more likely that between 18 and 24 years obtain loans for cars or credit cards than their civil counterparts.

Saul Loeb through Getty Images

The CFPB said last year that the number of complaints he received from the military community in 2023 was almost double The number he received in 2021. A frequent complaint from the members of the service was not receiving an interest rate of 6% in cars loans they obtained before active service, since they were entitled to the law.

These complaints end in the public database of the CFPB, where Litt says that the attention and risk of shame are often ashamed to companies to solve the problem. His analysis found that 98.5% of the complaints from the service members received “a timely response.”

“Because the database is public, companies have an incentive for at least responding,” he said.

Republican legislators have attacked the CFPB for years, but the agency has never been as in danger as Trump is under. In Febre He ordered them to stop all their work. Trump said at that time that the CFPB was “very important to get rid of. “

Later, a federal judge blocked the administration plan to fire the vast majority of CFPB employees, but that case is under appeal. Meanwhile, the administration is moving forward as if the courts blessed their plan to destroy the agency: employees recently received an email that ordered them to take off their offices in the next few days, Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Law, reported.

Last month, the agency’s leadership also terminated dozens of CFPB policy documents, which suggests a great setback in the application of the law even if the courts frustrate Trump’s mass layoffs. The measure was applauded by the American Bankers Association, a leading lobby for the banking industry.

Litt pointed out that Yanked documents included guidance for the public complaints database, which according to him could be a “first step” to close it.

“The withdrawal of that guide suggests that they intend or could hide the public database,” he said.