If you’ve been wondering why your credit repair progress hit a wall earlier this year, you’re not alone—and there’s now a clearer reason why.
In early 2025, a major shift happened inside the federal agency tasked with protecting your financial rights: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). This agency normally investigates unfair credit reporting, holds financial institutions accountable, and helps protect consumers—people like you—from inaccurate or harmful credit practices.
But in a surprising and sudden move, the two top officials in charge of investigations and enforcement—Lorelei Salas and Eric Halperin—both stepped down after being told to pause all their work. That’s right: the team that makes sure banks, credit bureaus, and collection companies follow the rules was told to stop doing their job.
Why? Because new leadership came in—specifically, acting director Russell Vought—and reportedly issued a directive to halt all supervisory activity. Salas and Halperin, who’ve been leading consumer protection efforts for years, refused to stay silent about it. In fact, in their farewell notes to staff, both of them said they didn’t believe it was lawful or right to stop enforcing consumer protection.
Since 2021, under their leadership, the CFPB had recovered over $9.5 billion for consumers. Their sudden exit leaves many wondering: Who’s watching the credit bureaus now?
To add to the confusion, this disruption came shortly after a new team—affiliated with the Department of Governmental Efficiency (a Trump-era creation)—entered CFPB offices and gained access to internal systems.
All of this chaos directly impacts the oversight of credit reporting agencies. So if your dispute letters didn’t seem to get traction during January through March 2025, it might not be because of anything you did wrong. It could be because the watchdog agency was temporarily sidelined from doing its job.
Better Report™ will continue to monitor these developments and advocate for our users. As the CFPB regains momentum, we expect dispute responses to improve. In the meantime, we remain committed to ensuring your credit profile reflects only what’s accurate, verifiable, and fair.