Okay, USA followers, you know how we all hate bank fees? I mean, you overdraw your account by $1.23 and you get charged $25.00? That's evil.
As of Jan 26, 2022, the Biden Administration CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) is bringing the hammer down on junk fees. This is more than just bank fees - this is going after the junk fees on things like prepaid cards, loans, bank transfers, credit card late fees, even closing costs on a mortgage.
The CFPB needs public comments, like the opinions of real people who are affected by these fees, to build a case about telling financial organizations that THEY CAN'T CHARGE THEM ANYMORE.
The CFPB says it’s particularly interested in hearing from older and lower-income consumers, students, service members and people of color.
There's some good detail about the comments in this investopedia article. The easiest way to comment is to send an email to FederalRegisterComments@cfpb.gov. Include Docket No. CFPB-2022-0003 in the subject line of the message.
Note that these are public comments. They will be published online through the CFPB website. Don't include account numbers, social security numbers, or full names. Tell a story - tell about the time you overdrew your account by $1.23 and the bank took $35. Tell about how you signed up for a credit card and the company charged you a bunch of fees you didn't even know about. Tell about how you transferred money from your savings account to a checking account and the bank charged you $2.50.
These junk fees are a slap in the face of ordinary people who can't refuse to pay, and the CFBP is taking aim at the banks that charge them. To read what CFPB director Rohit Chopra had to say about this call to action, click here.
You have until March 31, 2022 to submit comments.
Just some potential questions I want to address:
- This is a necessary part of the process. Federal regulations need to go through a thing called "notice and comment." This is a federal law thing and not something the president can just skip.*
- The banks are also going to comment. This is not a petition, this is a forum. Your job is to provide as much data as possible to overwhelm comments from the banks. The administration needs to be able to point to a huge collection of data and say "we're making this decision because of X, Y, and Z, and while we considered A, B, and C, we thought X and Y were more important."
- Once a regulation is enacted, an administration needs to go through the same steps to remove or change it. This isn't like an executive order which can change on the whim of the sitting president: it's not indelibly permanent, but in order to change a regulation, you need to gather data again about why you need to change it, and have a notice and comment period.
*Actually, skipping this step made the Trump administration lose a record number of court cases, when normally the executive branch has the deck hugely stacked in their favor when it comes to policy. Ask me sometime about Chevron deference if you want me to geek out about administrative law for half an hour.
