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The CFPB's Office of Servicemember Affairs is reaching out to the banking and mortgage industries, as well as to members of the military and their families, to help raise awareness about financial challenges — from foreclosures to payday loans — and products that work for them.
December 16 -
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is applauding the Treasury Department for guidance it issued Thursday that would help members of the military avoid foreclosure.
September 29 -
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Wednesday it is seeking public input on products and services aimed at members of the military and their families.
September 7
WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is teaming up with other federal and state agencies on a new database of financial companies that have been cited for abusing military members.
State attorneys general, U.S. attorneys and judge advocates from all five branches of the military will be able to search the database — the first of its kind — for information about completed civil and criminal legal actions against companies and individuals who repeatedly scam the military. The Repeat Offenders Against Military, or ROAM, database was developed jointly by the CFPB, state AGs and the Department of Defense, the bureau said.
"The ROAM database will help law enforcement share information to stop some of the worst offenders, those that have made a practice of targeting our men and women in uniform and our veterans," Holly Petraeus, the associate director of CFPB's Office of Servicemember Affairs, said at a press conference Wednesday. "And it will empower the military's JAGs and personal financial managers with the information they need to protect military families from shady operators."
The database, which should be up and running in early February, was first proposed in September by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman after he had secured a $3.5 million settlement against a company for targeting servicemembers near Fort Drum in New York. He soon discovered that the company was also targeting servicemembers using similar schemes in seven other states.
"This was such a despicable scheme to target people who really are deserving of all of our gratitude and protection that I thought we really needed to get the word out nationally about who the individuals were, who the companies are, so that if they show up somewhere else, we could stop them," said Schneiderman, who joined CFPB and Federal Trade Commission officials at the press conference.
The database will only be available to state and federal officials, not to the general public, and will only include formal enforcement actions or legal actions that have been completed, not pending investigations.
FTC Commissioner Julie Brill said the database will complement the FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network, which tracks and shares consumer complaints, including specific complaints from members of the military.
Officials said they expect other AGs to embrace the database, too. Attorneys General Jack Conway of Kentucky and Derek Schmidt of Kansas, the co-chairmen of the National Association of Attorneys General's consumer protection committee, sent a letter to all state AGs Wednesday asking them to contribute information.
