On Thursday morning, the man taking apart your financial watchdog sat in front of the Senate and defended the demolition. Russell Vought, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told lawmakers the agency shouldn’t exist in its current form.
A few seats away, Sen. Elizabeth Warren put a price tag on his work: $26.5 billion. That’s what she says the Trump administration’s overhaul of the CFPB has cost American consumers, CNBC reported. It’s a steep jump from the roughly $19 billion her office estimated back in February.
Here’s what that means for you.
The referee watching your checking account, your credit report, and your credit card just got a lot weaker. And nobody’s going to knock on your door to warn you.
So let’s do it ourselves.
I’ve been a consumer advocate and reporter since 1991. Financial firms aren’t cartoon villains. But they’re not your friends, either. They respond to rules — and when you weaken the rules, their behavior changes. Here are six protections Washington just chipped away, and exactly how to cover yourself on each.
1. Your overdraft fees are back to $35 a pop
The CFPB finalized a rule capping overdraft fees as low as $5. Congress killed it in spring 2025, and President Donald Trump signed the repeal into law.
So the typical big-bank overdraft fee is back to around $35 — charged because you came up a few dollars short on a cup of coffee.
What to do: Opt out of overdraft “protection” entirely. Then a purchase you can’t cover just gets declined instead of triggering a fee. Keep a small cushion in checking that you pretend is zero. Our rundown on the latest overdraft rules walks through your options.
2. The $8 credit card late-fee cap is dead
Another CFPB rule would’ve capped most credit card late fees at $8. The bureau walked away from it. So issuers can charge you $30 or more the moment your payment slips by a day.
What to do: Put your minimum payment on autopay — just the minimum, so you’re never technically late. Then pay the rest by hand. One missed due date can also flip you into a penalty APR north of 29%. That’s a brutal price for a single slip.
3. Dozens of cases against companies just got dropped
Under Vought, the CFPB has dismissed or withdrawn at least 22 enforcement actions covering more than $3.5 billion in alleged harm to consumers, according to Warren’s report.
Translation: Some companies the government accused of cheating you just walked away.
What to do: Assume you’re the enforcement now. Document everything, dispute bad charges fast, and lean on the tactics in our guide to winning a consumer complaint. Don’t count on a regulator catching it for you.
One thing before we keep going — the financial world is louder and dumber than ever. Hot takes everywhere. Almost none of it is worth your time. I’ve spent 35+ years cutting through the noise so you don’t have to. Sign up for the free Money Talks Newsletter — 10 seconds, no spam, just the stuff that matters.
4. The complaint portal got harder to use — on purpose
The CFPB’s complaint system is the free tool that’s pushed companies to fix millions of problems. It got a redesign in June, and as The Hill reported, the changes make it tougher to use.
Now you need two-factor login. You’re told to fight the credit agency directly first and wait. And your complaint can be closed with a form letter instead of a fix.
What to do: File anyway, at consumerfinance.gov/complaint. Set up your login now so the extra steps don’t trip you up later. Your state attorney general takes these complaints too.
5. Your credit report lost a layer of oversight
Credit reporting is the single biggest thing people ask the CFPB for help with — and the agency has been making it easier for the bureaus to brush off complaints. Errors that tank your score can now sit there longer.
What to do: Pull all three reports free at annualcreditreport.com and dispute anything wrong. Clearing a bogus item is one of the fastest, cheapest ways to lift your score.
6. Big chunks of the market now go unwatched
Vought has proposed raising the asset threshold for banks the CFPB supervises from $10 billion to $21 billion, and he’s paused oversight of many nonbank fintechs. More companies handling your money, fewer regular check-ups.
What to do: Get extra skeptical of buy-now-pay-later plans and payment apps. Read the terms before you link a bank account, and keep the balances parked in those apps low. The hidden risks of these plans are worth knowing before you tap “pay in four.”
The other side of the argument
As you might expect, the administration tells a different story. The White House Council of Economic Advisers argues the CFPB itself made credit more expensive — pegging the cost at $237 billion to $369 billion since 2011 — and says reining it in was overdue.
Another thing to consider is that Sen. Warren was instrumental in establishing the CFPB, so she’s hardly objective.
But one thing I can tell you from decades of experience: Fewer consumer safeguards will lead to unhappier consumers. I’m all for getting rid of meaningless, expensive regulations. But what many people seem to be forgetting these days is that many of the regulations now being killed were originally drafted to protect you.
Reasonable people can argue about how big and how aggressive the CFPB should be. That’s a real debate. But one thing isn’t up for debate. The side arguing against consumer protections are the companies that benefit when they go away.
Right now, there’s less standing between you and a bank that would rather you skip the fine print.
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