Former top consumer financial watchdog fired by Trump still speaking out

• Rohit Chopra, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was fired by the Trump administration on Feb. 1.
• Rocket Homes said Rohit Chopra and the CFPB brought an "empty claim" against the company.
• Under the Trump administration, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has dropped several lawsuits that the agency initiated earlier on behalf of consumers.
• Two CFPB rules, including a $5 limit on overdraft fees, were overturned by both the House and Senate.

Casually, and yes carelessly, I left my iPhone SE with the crack in the corner behind on the tiny table in a nearly empty Starbucks one afternoon as we began walking toward the register to get coffee.

My guest, though, isn't one to look the other way.

He picked up the phone without a fuss or lengthy lecture and handed it to me, mindful of the havoc that can be caused when you leave a device that contains personal information unattended in a public place.

Ever the watchdog.

Rohit Chopra is no longer America's top consumer financial watchdog. But he's continued to speak out about the dangers consumers still face when it comes to their personal data and dealings, abuses in the financial system and more.

Many may remember seeing Chopra on "60 Minutes" on CBS after the battle broke out between the Trump administration's new Department of Government Efficiency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He's also been speaking his mind on podcasts and panels.

The former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lost his job on Feb. 1 when President Donald Trump fired him. To put it bluntly, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is going in another direction.

Chopra, 43, a Democrat who was nominated by President Joe Biden, took the top job in 2021 and had a five-year term that was to end in October 2026. Chopra's previous government experience included serving as assistant director and student loan ombudsman for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2010 through 2015. He also served as a Federal Trade Commissioner under the first Trump administration, with his term running from May 2018 through October 2021.

Many bankers and conservatives weren't Chopra fans

The Trump administration had a bullseye on the consumer regulatory agency, which was born out of the massive mortgage lending abuses several years ago. Critics have said Chopra and the agency overreached their authority in many cases.

Some conservatives wanted Trump to get rid of Chopra even before he let him go. "Why hasn’t he fired Rohit Chopra, the Elizabeth Warren protégé who runs the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?" asked the Wall Street Journal editorial board on Jan. 23.

The editorial noted that Chopra didn’t receive a single Republican Senate vote when he was confirmed in September 2021.

"Keeping him on would undermine Mr. Trump's agenda," the editorial continued.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board even wrote a second editorial Feb. 2 titled: "Rohit Chopra is Ousted, at Last."

What's going on with the consumer agency now

In February, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was ordered to stop work on proposed rules, not begin any new investigations and more. At one point, the website even appeared to be down.

"My understanding is that almost everyone is sitting on the bench. The investigations are all paused. The lawsuits are frozen. And all of the inspections and examinations have been canceled," Chopra said during a news conference held along with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel in Lansing on March 24.

Chopra was on the road in Michigan that day, also speaking at a public policy class at Michigan State University in East Lansing and an undergraduate finance class at the University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor. He met with me at a Starbucks in Novi late in the day.

Jeremy Kress, associate professor of business law at the U-M Ross School, said Chopra's discussion with students "explored ways in which finance has become disconnected from the real economy, small businesses and individuals."

Business students in the class, he said, were particularly interested in examining big tech's entry into the financial system and the potential risks that could pose to consumers and financial stability.

During his interview with the Detroit Free Press, Chopra told me that many people believe that the reason the CFPB was targeted by the Trump administration is because the CFPB started to exercise more oversight over the big tech companies that are handling people's payments.

"A lot of us tap our phones to pay. Google. Apple. Venmo. Cash App," Chopra said.

"One of the things we did was put into place stronger oversight and the Senate took a step to repeal the oversight over those big tech companies."

The U.S. Senate voted March 5 to put a stop to the CFPB's final rule that gave the agency oversight to supervise and examine nonbank tech companies that offer digital payment tools, like Google and Apple. The rule, Chopra said earlier, was designed to help to protect consumer privacy, guard against fraud and prevent illegal account closures.

In late January, Elon Musk's X announced a partnership with Visa to offer real-time payments on the social media platform, formerly known as Twitter. The "X Money Account" is set to launch later this year. The app could offer a range of services, including the ability to transfer money, similar to Venmo or PayPal. And it was on target to be regulated by the CFPB.

Musk tweeted in late November: "Delete CFPB. There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies."

"The way I read it is that people are wondering why would Elon Musk and DOGE be so fixated with this small agency?" Chopra told me.

"I don't know the answer because (the CFPB) has a very clear mission that is very broadly supported. The only place it is controversial is with financial industry lobbyists."

"I don't really know what transpired," he said.

"Part of me wonders who is it more? Is it more Silicon Valley or is it more Wall Street?"

Chopra and other advocates view the Trump administration's current efforts to effectively shut down the CFPB as being illegal.

On March 28, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted a motion for a preliminary injunction in the lawsuit brought Feb. 9 by the National Treasury Employees Union, National Consumer Law Center and others against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought.

As part of the order, the judge noted: "There is a substantial risk that the defendants will complete the destruction of the agency completely in violation of law well before the court can rule on the merits, and it will be impossible to rebuild."

Consumers have long been able to turn to the federal watchdog agency when they ran into problems with their auto loans, mortgages, credit cards, payment apps, student loan servicers, credit reports and more. The website www.consumerfinance.gov is up and still takes complaints.

In early April, the CFPB site noted: "Each week we send more than 50,000 complaints about financial products and services to companies for response. If another agency would be better able to assist, we'll send it to them and let you know. Most companies respond within 15 days."

How many of those complaints — or any pattern in the complaints — might be explored by the regulators going forward, though, could be debatable.

Since he was fired Feb. 1, Chopra said, the entire squad of law enforcers and overseers of Wall Street, big tech and other financial companies were sent home and given an order to not perform any work tasks.

The agency has issued a series of what Chopra calls "corporate pardons" to companies that had faced legal enforcement challenges brought against them by the CFPB.

Under the Trump administration, the CFPB dropped a lawsuit against Rocket Homes, a subsidiary of the Detroit-based Rocket Companies, which had faced allegations of an alleged kickback scheme. Rocket Homes and Rocket Mortgage are two sister companies.

Under the Biden administration, the agency filed a lawsuit in December in U.S. District Court in Detroit against Rocket Homes and multiple national offices of The Jason Mitchell Group, a real estate brokerage.

The federal watchdog claimed in that enforcement action that Rocket Homes violated consumer protection laws by giving kickbacks to real estate agents to illegally steer prospective homebuyers to Rocket Mortgage and a related title company.

Rocket Homes said in its statement then that the case against it was a "misrepresentation of facts" and should not have been brought against the company.

“It is good to see the truth come to light," Rocket Homes said in a statement issued in February that followed the CFPB's dropping of the case.

Rocket Homes said the company "has always connected buyers with top-performing agents based only on objective criteria like how well they helped homebuyers achieve their dream of homeownership."

"This case was a misrepresentation of the facts, as we have said from the day the suit was filed," the statement said.

"It was an empty claim brought forth by former CFPB director Chopra for the sole purpose of seeing his name in headlines during the final days in public office."

Under the Trump administration, the CFPB dropped a string of other enforcement actions against financial giants — including a case brought in January against Capital One, National Association, a national bank that allegedly misled consumers in its marketing of high rates paid on its "360 Savings" account.

In an emailed statement to the Detroit Free Press, a Capital One spokesperson said: “We welcomed the CFPB’s decision to dismiss this action, which we strongly disputed.”

The CFPB had claimed in the lawsuit that Capital One ended up cheating millions of consumers out of more than $2 billion in interest, as part of these allegations. According to the CFPB allegations, Capital One had two types of 360 accounts at one point, one that had high rates and one that didn't.

"Capital One did not convert 360 Savings accounts into 360 Performance Savings accounts," according to the CFPB announcement on Jan. 14, "and instead took steps to obscure from 360 Savings accountholders the fact that these were different products."

The CFPB also dropped a lawsuit filed in December against three of the nation's largest banks — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — related to Zelle.

Chopra told journalists on a conference call in December that the major financial institutions failed to fix glaring flaws in the system that enabled fraud to take place while marketing the safety of Zelle's near-instant electronic money transfers.

"What they built became a gold mine for criminals," Chopra said in December.

Bankers defended the safety of the Zelle app, and said the CFPB under Chopra was overreaching its authority.

In January, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that Cash App, a popular platform used to transfer money, faces paying out up to $120 million in refunds and other redress to harmed customers, plus $55 million in penalties, relating to its troubling handling of customer service and a spurt in fraud.

Consumers were told that they do not need to take any action to receive a refund from a pool of $75 million to $120 million in refunds and other redress.

For years, the independent federal agency took serious enforcement actions, which were spurred by consumer complaints and investigative reports.

More than $21 billion in relief was obtained. That figure, according to the bureau, includes monetary compensation, principal reductions, canceled debts and other consumer relief.

More than $5 billion in civil penalties was imposed by the CFPB on companies and individuals that violated the law.

The move to end a plan to limit overdraft fees to $5

Chopra has been highlighting how "big corporate royalty" calls the shots now in Washington, D.C.

On April 2, Chopra was on C-Span speaking on a panel at a technology summit in Washington, D.C., hosted by Y Combinator, a tech accelerator that has helped launch thousands of companies, including well-known names such as Reddit and DoorDash.

As part of that conversation, Chopra mentioned the outrage when Congress passed its $700 billion bailout for Wall Street in 2008 following the financial crisis. Congress later created the consumer watchdog agency as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

This year, Chopra noted on the panel, the Senate voted 52 to 48 on March 27 to overturn a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule in December 2024 that limited big banks and credit unions to charging only $5 for overdraft fees. The House voted April 9 to repeal the overdraft rule, as well.

The American Bankers Association applauded the overturning of what it called the "CFPB’s eleventh-hour overdraft rule."

"Consumers have indicated time and time again that they value and appreciate this highly regulated service and don’t want banks to discontinue offering it because of a rule that imposes unlawful government price caps," according to Rob Nichols, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association.

Perhaps, but many consumers would have saved money.

The rule, crafted by Chopra, would have meant that big institutions would no longer be able to charge $25 or $35 for overdraft fees and, according to CFPB estimates, would have saved consumers up to $5 billion in annual fees, or $225 per household that pays overdraft fees.

The overdraft final rule — which would cover about 175 of largest banks and credit unions in the country — was to take effect Oct. 1, 2025. The agency’s final rule on overdraft fees applied to the banks and credit unions with more than $10 billion in assets that dominate the U.S. market.

Under the rule, the CFPB said, these financial institutions had some options. They could charge the flat $5 fee when consumers overdraw their account, choose to charge another fee that covers no more than costs or losses, or offer "profit-generating overdraft loans if they comply with longstanding lending laws, including disclosing any applicable interest rate."

Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, of Missouri, was the only Republican to vote against overturning the rule, noting that the regulation would save many middle-income consumers money.

In addition, both the House and Senate also voted to overturn a CFPB rule that would have provided some oversight over digital payment applications run by the largest technology companies. The big-tech payment app rule sought to prevent excessive surveillance and misuse of the consumer's financial data.

Warnings of another financial crisis

Dismantling and de-funding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Chopra said, does nothing to protect citizens.

"It only creates the conditions for another financial crisis," Chopra said in late March.

Chopra said he's most worried about potential fraud and scams, which can hit consumers of all ages.

"One of the things that we paid really close attention to is what were the new ways which people's identities would get stolen, new ways that their account information could be misused."

New technologies can be used to defraud people, he said, including ways to copy or clone the voices of someone you know and how scammers could be able to use your voice to log into your account.

"I really worry who is going to be looking at these types of frauds," Chopra said.

How price tags could change based on what you buy

Big tech is quickly changing the financial landscape, he said, including the expansion of a practice known as personalized pricing.

Companies are able to use your data, including things like your past purchase history, to determine how much you'd be willing to pay for a product when you're shopping online. The price you see could be adjusted in real-time based on your past behavior and characteristics.

"One of the things the CFPB was pursuing was a rule on financial privacy and data brokers," Chopra said.

The CFPB wanted regulatory authority over payment companies, he said, because consumers don't want all of their transaction data sold to someone else. Amazon, he said, doesn't need to know that someone has a health condition that requires them to buy certain types of products.

"That can be used and weaponized for personalized pricing," Chopra said.

"To me one of the best consumer protections that exists is the price tag. A price tag shows what the price tag is for anybody buying it. But with so much invasion of our privacy, it seems like the price tag is under threat.

"And each of us will face different prices based on what companies know about us."

The watchdog is mindful that all sorts of threats can lurk in the digital universe when it comes to our online shopping habits, our payment apps and all that data on our smartphones.

Contact personal finance columnist Susan Tompor: stompor@freepress.com. Follow her on X @tompor.