Everybody likes to get money back from the government. Now there’s a new way to cash in on Uncle Sam.
But like many government programs, this one has a few issues.
If you bought a car in the last few years, you might get a check from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), as long as you live in the right (or I guess, the wrong) neighborhood and have a certain-sounding last name.
That’s because the watchdog agency started sniffing around the auto industry a couple of years ago and dug up a bone. It might be a synthetic bone that you can see only with x-ray eyes, but hey, they’re the government.
The board demanded that a lending institution, Ally Bank, atone for its theoretical sins – which I’ll detail in a moment – by paying millions of dollars without admitting guilt. Now it’s got to find some victims.
It’s the latest example of a government agency that’s broken free of its leash.
When buying a car, there’s money to be made or lost at each step, depending on whether you are the buyer or seller.
Beyond simply negotiating the cost of the vehicle, buyers must navigate the dealer add-ons, prep charges, and extended warranties.
After all of that is done, buyers have to contend with one more important variable – financing. Dealers take credit applications from borrowers, feed them into their systems, and then get financing offers from lending institutions, which dealers can mark up for more profit.
The CFPB found an ethereal offense in this corner of finance.
The agency sifted through mountains of data and determined that Ally Bank charged different people different rates of interest. Buyers with lower credit scores, smaller down payments, or less income were charged more.
The CFPB knows this for a fact, since the agency reviewed credit applications containing such data. But that’s not the problem.
The CFPB is certain it spotted something else. Racism. The agency socked Ally Bank with an $80 million penalty for the alleged offense.
