BEWARE! SCAMS ARE COMING YOUR WAY!
Consumers beware; scams of all sorts are coming your way. The Trump administration is weakening or eliminating agencies and regulations that protect consumers. From financial services to the big tech companies a lack of oversight and regulation will lead to consumer rip-offs and outright fraud. You will need to up your level of vigilance to avoid getting scammed.
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Consumers beware; scams of all sorts are coming your way. The Trump administration is weakening or eliminating agencies and regulations that protect consumers, so it’s an open field for unscrupulous behavior by businesses and fraudsters. From financial services (including student loans) to the big tech companies, a lack of oversight and regulation will lead to consumer rip-offs and outright fraud.
Perhaps the most blatant of the Trump administration’s anti-consumer actions is the virtual elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). In its 14 years of existence, the CFPB has required over $20 billion to be returned to consumers who were defrauded by financial businesses. Last year, for example, it sent $1.8 billion in checks to 4.3 million customers who had been defrauded by two credit repair services. [1] It has saved consumers billions more by regulating late fees on credit cards, overdraft fees on bank accounts, and much more. If it had been in existence before the 2008 financial collapse, it might well have prevented the collapse, and it would have saved many home owners their homes and others billions of dollars lost to mortgage fraud.
Not surprisingly, in the absence of CFPB enforcement, the number of consumer complaints has already exploded with 2.5 million complaints filed in the last six months. This is over ten times the number of complaints filed in a typical six-month period over the last 13 years. A major source of complaints is inaccurate data on consumers’ credit reports. Two weeks before Trump took office, the CFPB had sued Experian (one of the three big credit reporting agencies) for basically ignoring consumers’ complaints about inaccurate information. This lawsuit is going nowhere under the Trump administration. The Trump administration also voided a ruling that would have forced the Navy Federal Credit Union to return $80 million in fraudulent overdraft fees to customers who had been told they had sufficient funds to cover a withdrawal. This just one example of Trump administration actions to take millions of dollars promised to fraud victims and give it back to corporate scammers.
The Trump administration is attempting to dodge requirements that the CFPB make consumer complaints public so consumers can know which companies are bad actors. It has also stopped actions to curb excessive credit card late fees, to remove medical debt from credit reports, and to regulate digital payment businesses, payday lenders, and credit repair services. It has permanently dropped at least 22 enforcement actions against companies accused of billions of dollars of consumer financial fraud, including one against Zelle, the electronic payment platform that was infested with fraud shortly after being launched.
Medical credit cards and abuses of them are likely to increase dramatically with the CFPB out of the way. For example, in 2023, Synchrony Bank made $3.7 billion in interest and fees on its 11.7 million CareCredit cards (the most widely used medical credit card). These are offered to patients, sometimes ones in a crisis. They are often interest-free up-front but have a balloon interest amount due if not fully paid off in a set period. There are frequently junk fees associated with them and users frequently report that the terms and rules of the credit card weren’t clearly explained to them. [2]
The emasculation of the CFPB will eliminate oversight and accountability in the financial industry. This will make consumers vulnerable to the multitude of financial scams in the marketplace, which will now grow and proliferate. You will need to up your level of vigilance to avoid getting scammed.
Consumers will also be harmed by the far-reaching business deregulation and lack of enforcement of regulations and laws governing business behavior that the Trump administration is undertaking. As economists have noted for literally hundreds of years, bad money drives out good money, or, in other words, honest companies have a tough time competing against dishonest companies. Therefore, bad business behavior is likely to proliferate. [3]
Over 165 enforcement actions against businesses have been dropped or put on hold in the first six month of the Trump administration. Not coincidentally, roughly $50 million in donations to Trump’s inauguration and untold millions to Trump via other vehicles have come from companies subject to federal investigations, lawsuits, enforcement actions, or antitrust cases. Technology companies, particularly the big three: Meta (Facebook’s parent company), Apple, and Google, have benefited by spending relatively small amounts of money for them (a few million dollars) on political spending and lobbying to get favorable actions from the Trump administration. Of the 140 investigations and enforcement actions targeting 104 tech corporations when Trump took office, at least 50 have already been stopped. Bank of America, Capital One, Coinbase, DuPont, and JPMorgan donated to Trump’s inauguration and then federal enforcement actions against them were dropped. Intuit, which makes tax preparation software, gave to the inauguration and then the IRS discontinued its free, Direct File tax return program. Apple supported the inauguration and was then exempted from most tariffs. These companies are getting a great return on their “investments”. This pattern is evidence of a pay-to-play scheme that would be criminal bribery under any other president and administration. [4] [5]
The Trump administration is weakening or stating it won’t enforce laws banning U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials, prohibiting workplace discrimination, or regulating loan shark lending and its usurious interest rates. It is also making life harder and loans more expensive for student borrowers by making federal government student lending much less helpful and more costly. This will force many students needing to borrow funds for college into the hands of private lenders, some of whom are financial predators that the CFPB won’t be around to regulate or hold accountable. [6]
More in my next post on scams to be on the lookout for, including from the cryptocurrency industry.
[1] Tkacik, M., & Baratta, J., 7/11/25, “Hardly workin’,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/economy/2025-07-11-hardly-workin-cfpb-doge-trump/)
[2] Covert, B., 5/28/25, “Predatory lenders in the operating room,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/health/2025-05-28-predatory-lenders-operating-room-medical-credit-cards/)
[3] Dayen, D., 5/27/25, “The golden age of scams,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/power/2025-05-27-golden-age-of-scams/)
[4] Johnson, J., 8/14/25, “‘Corporate crime pays’ under Trump as his agencies drop enforcement against 165 companies,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/corporate-crime-donald-trump)
[5] Johnson, J., 4/22/25, “‘See how this works?’: Trump drops cases against corporations that funded his inauguration,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-corporations-inauguration)
[6] Dayen, D, 5/27/25, “Borrowers besieged,” The American Prospect (https://prospect.org/education/2025-05-27-borrowers-besieged-student-debt/)