Mulvaney Fires Entire CFPB Advisory Board
On June 4, 2018, several members of the Consumer Advisory Board came forward to say that since taking over, Mick Mulvaney has been canceling required meetings with the board. Two in-person meetings and all but one conference call were cancelled.
The most recent in-person meeting was cancelled with no notice to CAB members; they only found out when attempting to coordinate travel arrangements with the CFBP. The only conference call with the CAB that has been held since Mulvaney’s appointment was scheduled to last a hour. Mulvaney cut it off after 20 minutes.
Under Dodd-Frank, the CFPB is required to meet with the CAB at least twice per year. Since Mulvaney took over, there has been only that one brief conference call. Mulvaney has also avoided all required meetings with the CFPB’s other three advisory boards. (Academic Research Council. Community Bank Advisory Council, and Credit Union Advisory Council.)
Protecting Yourself in the Wake of the Equifax Data Breach
On September 7, 2017 the credit reporting agency Equifax announced that their systems had been breached. Over the next few days it became clear that the breach had gone on for several months, from May through July 2017, with an earlier, smaller breach in March 2017.
Over145 million Americans discovered that their personal information and financial data - names, birthdates, addresses, credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, and in some cases driver's license numbers and dispute documents - had been accessed by hackers.
It soon came out that the CEO of Equifax had been infomed of the breach on July 29th, but did not inform the board until mid August. …