A Little Less In Capital One’s Wallet

by Stuart Shapiro

Last week, I posted about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s regulations to protect consumers. This week, the new agency issued its first enforcement action.

Capital One Bank will pay $210 million to settle federal charges that it tricked credit card customers into buying costly add-on services like payment protection and credit monitoring.

Most of the money will go directly to refund customers who were led to believe the services were free or mandatory or offered more benefits than they did, officials said Wednesday.

And as thepeoplesview.net shows, Capital One has ramped up its donations to Republicans over the past 4 years.

The big banks know that there is a new sheriff on the beat. And they will spend mightily with the hope that Governor Romney will take the CFPB’s badge away.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.