Cordray says old agency backing off Equifax probe
WASHINGTON — Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray charged Tuesday that his successor at a federal consumer watchdog agency is “stonewalling” an investigation into the credit company Equifax.
One day after Reuters reported that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has “pulled back from a fullscale probe” of Equifax for allegedly not protecting the personal information of more than 140 million consumers, Cordray said the bureau is “refusing to work with other agencies to address how consumers remain vulnerable to further mass data breaches.”
Cordray, who resigned as head of the bureau last year to run for governor, said in a fund-raising appeal that “Equifax was shockingly reckless with Americans’ private information, from credit cards to drivers’ licenses to Social Security numbers.”
Cordray said he authorized the bureau “to work with other federal agencies to investigate the company’s gross malpractice. Equifax neglected to secure your most valuable data, and I believed it was essential to get justice for all those hurt by this unprecedented breach.”
Last November, President Donald Trump named Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, as interim director of the consumer bureau.
Reuters, citing three sources, reported Monday that Mulvaney had not ordered subpoenas against Equifax or attempted to obtain sworn testimony from company officials.
John Czwartacki, a senior adviser at the bureau, said Mulvaney “takes data security issues very seriously. Under his direction, the CFPB is working with our partners across government on Equifax’s data breach and response. We are committed to enforcing the law.”
The Reuters report prompted Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, to say the Trump administration “needs to swiftly nominate a CFPB director who will protect consumers instead of letting well-connected corporations walk away scot-free.”
A Dispatch series in 2012, “Credit Scars,” illuminated the plight of thousands of Americans who, through no fault of their own, have been harmed by flawed reports. Their stories were documented in nearly 30,000 complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in 24 states that the newspaper collected and analyzed.
The series highlighted how consumers couldn’t break through the system to correct mistakes that range from the benign, such as a misspelled name, to the financially crippling. In some cases, the consumers were listed as deceased and couldn’t prove otherwise.
“The Consumer Bureau should be doubling down with Equifax and the protection of our credit data, not letting the credit bureaus off the hook,” National Consumer Law Center attorney Chi Chi Wu said in a statement.