(New York) Tens of millions of dollars in financial fees improperly charged by banks and financial institutions have been refunded to consumers, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced Wednesday.
The monitoring carried out by the CFPB, created after the 2008 crisis, between February and August 2023 on “rotten fees” made it possible to reimburse 140 million dollars, including more than 120 million for “surprise” bank overdraft fees and overbilling for insufficiently funded accounts, he said in a press release.
The organization also pointed out fees charged for sending statements in paper version which did not exist in reality or for products subscribed as an option within the framework of automobile loans which were always taken after repayment of the loan or seizure of the vehicle.
“The CFPB continues to uncover rotten fee scams that violate the law and harm consumer confidence,” noted Rohit Chopra, director of the CFPB, quoted in the press release.
It also highlighted the charging of fees during international transfers which were not properly disclosed to customers.
“It’s about fairness. People are tired of being taken advantage of and being taken for pigeons,” President Joe Biden said from the White House gardens, with Mr. Chopra, the president of the American authority of Competition (FTC) Lina Khan and members of Congress notably in the audience.
He denounced “unfair fees known as rotten fees, these hidden fees that companies discreetly slip into your bills to make you pay more simply because they can” and which can represent hundreds of dollars for families.
Mr. Biden announced a project of measures to force companies to detail the totality of the fees invoiced as well as other stipulations (refundable or not), or to facilitate changes of banks.
A separate report, published Wednesday, specifies that most banking institutions in the United States have removed under pressure in recent years fees linked to insufficiently funded accounts, which represented approximately two billion dollars per year.