Where Was CFPB While Wells Fargo Plundered?

F. Paul Bland asserts (Letters, Sept. 12) that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule is necessary to avoid “immunity” for Wells Fargo for creating fake accounts. Like most antiarbitration rhetoric, this is fiction. The CFPB’s antiarbitration rule isn’t even in effect, yet government authorities (not class-action lawyers) required Wells Fargo to provide full restitution for consumers, fined the bank an additional $185 million in addition to Wells Fargo losing substantial market share from the deserved reputational damage. Over 5,000 employees lost their jobs, including the CEO. The Labor Department also imposed a fine and required the rehiring of a whistleblower. Wells Fargo still faces additional probes from federal, state and local agencies, including the Justice Department.

Had the CFPB been paying attention to consumer protection instead of seeking to protect wealthy trial lawyers from competition, it could have intervened sooner than it did.

Letter to the editor originally published in The Wall Street Journal.