Attorney General Jay Jones has joined a multistate legal effort to prevent the Trump Administration from cutting funding to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The announcement comes during National Consumer Protection Week and follows concerns that defunding the CFPB could reduce protections for consumers.
The CFPB was established after the 2008 housing crisis with a mandate to ensure fairness, transparency, and competition in consumer financial products and services. Since its creation, it has recovered more than $21 billion for over 205 million Americans. In 2024 alone, about 3.2 million consumer complaints were submitted to the CFPB, including 63,229 from Virginians. These complaints led businesses to provide more than $93.5 million in monetary relief nationwide, with nearly $2.6 million going to Virginia residents.
Attorney General Jones stated: “Defunding the CFPB is yet another attempt by the overzealous and chaotic Trump Administration to punish federal employees and eliminate crucial consumer protection resources that keep our communities safe. Without the CFPB, Virginians will be more vulnerable to consumer fraud and discriminatory lending practices, and less able to monitor consumer and homeowner trends in Virginia. Without the CFPB, it will be more difficult to pursue investigations into potential violations of State and federal consumer protection laws. My office will use every tool at its disposal to stop the dismantling of the CFPB and secure these resources for Virginians.”
The CFPB’s responsibilities include supervising financial institutions, enforcing regulations, rulemaking, managing a national complaint response system shared with state agencies, and collecting data on lending practices by demographics and geography. This information allows regulators at both state and federal levels to identify unfair or discriminatory lending patterns.
The Attorney General’s office encourages Virginians with questions or concerns about consumer issues to contact their Consumer Protection Section by phone or email or use online forms provided by their office.
The Office of the Attorney General of Virginia offers civil rights enforcement programs as well as victim assistance initiatives supporting public safety throughout Virginia (official website). It also provides legal counsel for state agencies while working on matters such as human trafficking prevention, domestic violence advocacy, identity theft resources, and fraud reporting (official website). The Attorney General represents all citizens across the Commonwealth (official website).
