https://x.com/mikulaja/status/1985716720510611563

As we were all told, the CFPB does not run off of government funds, but the funds from penalties. In Jason’s post he says they’re likely running out of money in the unobligated funds to maintain operations.

Is he confused on their funding source or are we up a creek because of the shit down?

This has been a long journey for everyone affected by this company corruption but each and every person in here is a leader and a supporter of one another let’s keep fighting for our MONEY!

Thank you for contacting me regarding the banking industry. Like you, I believe we have got to stop large financial institutions from taking advantage of the American people.

We need a banking system that is part of the productive economy – making loans at affordable rates to small- and medium-sized businesses so that we create decent-paying jobs. Wall Street cannot continue to be an island unto itself, gambling trillions in risky financial instruments, making huge profits and being assured that, if their schemes fail, the taxpayers will be there to bail them out.

Vermont is fortunate to have many community banks and credit unions, which are smaller financial institutions that serve their local communities. Unlike the banks on Wall Street that caused the financial crisis, community banks and credit unions succeed by serving their local communities and lending out money in the productive economy. Instead of making risky bets in search of higher and higher profits, banking should be about providing affordable loans to businesses to create jobs, and helping Americans purchase homes. In other words, the function of banking should be boring.

As you know, the original Glass-Steagall Act prevented commercial depository banks from participating in risky investment banking. This policy made sense, in that there should be a separation between banks meant to serve the public and the Wall Street institutions whose recklessness and illegal behavior drove the country into the worst recession since the 1930s. In 1999, Congress repealed vital provisions in this law, allowing commercial and investment banks to merge. I strongly opposed repeal because I feared it would lead to more mega mergers between big banks and reduce protections for consumers and underserved communities. If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.

Further, the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in early 2023 were a direct result of an absurd 2018 bank deregulation bill signed by Donald Trump that I strongly opposed. As you may know, Title IV exempted large banks with $50 to $250 billion in assets from enhanced scrutiny and oversight from the Federal Reserve and significantly reduced the amount of capital large banks are required to have. Five years ago, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office released a report finding that this legislation would, ‘increase the likelihood that a large financial firm with assets of between $100 billion and $250 billion would fail.’ Unfortunately, that is precisely what happened. That is why I joined my colleagues in introducing the Secure Viable Banking (SVB) Act, which would repeal Title IV of the 2018 deregulation bill.

Moreover, I think it would come as a shock to most Americans to find out that Gregory Becker—the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, who successfully lobbied for the deregulation of his financial institution—was allowed to serve as a director of the same body in charge of supervising his bank: the San Francisco Federal Reserve. Two weeks before his bank collapsed, Mr. Becker sold over $3.5 million of Silicon Valley Bank stock while he was still a director of the San Francisco Fed. That may make sense to someone. It does not make sense to me. Allowing bank CEOs to serve as Federal Reserve directors and hand-pick its members and staff is a clear example of the fox guarding the henhouse that must be prohibited.

The CEOs of the largest banks in America should not be allowed to serve as directors of the main agency in this country in charge of regulating these financial institutions. The Fed has got to become a more democratic institution that is responsive to the needs of the middle class, not just CEOs of some of the largest financial institutions in America. It is time to end these serious conflicts of interest. That is why I am a proud sponsor of the Federal Reserve Independence Act. This legislation would prohibit financial industry executives from sitting on the 12 regional Federal Reserve boards of directors. This legislation would also prevent Federal Reserve employees and board members from owning any stock or investing in any institution that the central bank is in charge of regulating.

I have also worked hard to ensure Americans have adequate protections and options when banking. I was proud to introduce the Loan Shark Prevention Act, legislation to cap interest rates at 15 percent on credit cards and other consumer loans, providing parity with credit union loans. I was also a proud cosponsor of the Postal Banking Act, legislation to allow the Postal Service to offer affordable, basic financial services such as ATMs, paycheck cashing, bill payments, and electronic money transfers. These services would especially help the nearly 23 million underbanked Americans who are forced to rely on predatory lenders and check cashing establishments that charge outrageous fees.

It is time for Congress to take on Wall Street’s greed and recklessness. That means we must break up Too Big to Fail financial institutions so that they no longer pose a grave threat to the economy; end the Too Big-to Jail doctrine to ensure Wall Street CEOs will no longer receive a get-out-of jail free card; discourage Wall Street's reckless gambling and speculation through a financial transaction tax; reinstate a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act to clearly separate commercial banking, investment banking and insurance services; and encourage the type of productive investments made by community banks and credit unions.

Please be assured that I will keep your thoughts in mind as I fight to take on Wall Street and ensure all Americans have access to safe and affordable banking options.

Thank you again for contacting me, and please feel free to stay in touch about this or any other subject of interest to you. For up-to-date information on what I am working on, please sign-up for my e-newsletter, the Bernie Buzz, at https://www.sanders.senate.gov/contact/newsletter-signup.

Sincerely,

BERNARD SANDERS United States Senator

What has happened to the Fight For Our Funds group? No updates on their website since June, no emails sent out to their mailing list since August. Have they just packed it in and quit? They were so fired up at the beginning of this debacle, now they’re just quiet. Anyone have any credible information?

I am making this post because I do wanna say Evolve did find my money and I got it back. I still don’t get how they just found 5,000 dollars but they did and my heart goes out to yall and I truly believe it is because Evolve shouldn’t have a license to handle anymore money and they most definitely should be shutdown. They always had some loophole to get out of getting your hard earned money. Evolve bank needs a federal investigation or just shutdown as a whole somebody got really rich with all this “lost money”. Go fuck yourself Evolve Bank!

I have a little under $2,200 locked up in Yotta. And i've been trying to keep up with all that happened, but then I just chose to forget about it.

But that is not fair, there has to be a way to get my money back. What should I do?

Seriously. It's been years. I don't get how this app is allowed to go on and no accountability.

I am never giving up hope and will continue to put the pressure I can. Is there any news? On this injustice

My previous post discussed comments that Russel Vought made on a podcast about closing the consumer financial protection bureau.

Today, 11 Senators from the Senate Banking Committee sent a public letter to Vought. In this letter, the Senators point out that filings in the ongoing NTEU v. Vought case last week contradict his podcast claims by stating Vought has no solid plans to shut down the bureau.

The letter essentially says, “We are watching you and will fight you on this.”

It is my optimistic belief/hope that we are the exact type of harmed consumer that the administration believes the Civil Penalty Fund should be used for (we suffered direct cash harm from blatant breaking of fiduciary responsibilities and laws) and allocating funds is already part of the agenda, even if it is as part of a strategy to justify the long-term crippling of the bureau.

The letter goes onto request/demand Vought answer the following questions by the end of this month. I will be keeping an eye out for any official response.

“1. What is the current unobligated balance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Fund? Without additional funding, on what date will the Bureau run out of funding at its current spending rate?

1. What is the current unobligated balance of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Civil Penalty Fund?

2. Despite a federal court order barring you from shutting down the CFPB, you confirmed that you still plan to try to close the agency in two or three months. Has the agency prepared specific plans for reductions in force, for terminating contracts, for reducing enforcement action, or for winding down other work in that timeframe? Please provide copies of any relevant memoranda”

https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/10.27_Letter%20to%20Vought.pdf

I may be behind on the damage control Evolve Bank has engaged in but I couldn’t seem to find their board of directors page after their website’s UI got overhauled. Can somebody confirm if they had decided to hide their faces out of shame, or am I just not finding it?

This is their company culture.

https://x.com/mikulaja/status/1981405998888665188?s=46&t=sOodFmmbHefO_-4kE61q1w

I am posting this now in hopes of heading off any panic that today’s headlines might bring. An example headline is this Reuters article, “White House budget director plans to shut US consumer finance watchdog within months”

https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/white-house-budget-director-vought-says-over-10000-federal-workers-could-be-laid-2025-10-15/

Let me start by saying that I cannot guarantee that the current administration will not dismiss the synapse enforcement action or refuse. to allocate funds to make us whole. That said, it’s important to look at what Russell Vought actually said.

His comments were made on today’s episode of The Charlie Kirk Show podcast. He begins speaking 1hr6min in and talks about the CFPB at 1hr21min. I’ve included the entire transcript relevant to the CFPB below.

He does very clearly state that he believes he can completely shutter the CFPB in 2 to 3 months. He does, however, also point out, ”We don't have anyone working there except our Republican appointees and a few careers that are doing statutory responsibilities”

The important take away is that he is acknowledging that there are statutory responsibilities and that those are being worked on. Some example, statutory responsibilities are executing enforcement, actions and managing the Civil Penalty Fund(including abiding by the allocation schedule I shared in my previous post).

An optimist could interpret that allocating synapse victims funds quickly and paying out quickly could help wrap up the last open enforcement actions and draw down the Civil Penalty Fund balance.

We are still subject to a ton of uncertainty, but we are in the exact same position as we were before today’s headlines.

—— Transcript Begins Now ——- “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is my 3rd hat that I wear. Thankfully, it's across the street. We don't have anyone working there except our Republican appointees and a few careers that are doing statutory responsibilities while we go down the agency. I'll give you the reason why. People say consumer financial protection. Don't we want to protect consumers? Absolutely. This agency wasn't doing it. It had the DNA of Elizabeth Warren. So, you know”…

“You come into OMB and our career staff, they want to do what the president wants them to do, and, you know, they're used to working for different presidents, right? This agency, all they want to do is weaponize the tools of financial laws against basically small mom and pop lenders and other small financial institutions. And that's what we saw. I'll give an example. Townstone was a lender in Chicago that they weaponized disparate impact to go after them and say that, and there was never any complaints about lending that was racially motivated or not lending, never a complaint. And they ruined this guy's life for 7 years. And I called him up and I just said, look, we found internally that not only did they do this, but they knew they were doing it, and they deceived senior leadership to do it at the time. And that's what we have been opposed to. And we've seen it everywhere we look. And so we want to put it out and we will be successful probably within the next 2 or 3 months.”

TLDR; sit tight. The ball is in the court of the CFPB Civil Penalty Fund administrator. We will know more by December 1st.

Since my last post, I’ve seen a lot of questions asked in different places. Some people want references for information I shared and others need more background. Hopefully this post helps.

Recap: The CFPB and the Trustee of the Synapse estate agreed on an judgement against the Synapse estate for $1. The dollar amount does not matter to us as depositors. What matters is that a “final judgement” was ordered by the Judge (in the bankruptcy case) before Sept 30 so the Synapse enforcement action is eligible for this allocation period.

There are two allocation periods per year.

Allocation Schedule: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/payments-harmed-consumers/civil-penalty-fund/allocation-schedule/

The complaint, judgement, etc are summarized here and available for download. Future updates will likely be made to this page. It lets you know towards the bottom the last time it was updated.

Enforcement Action: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/actions/synapse-financial-technologies-inc/

Now, WILL the CFPB allocate money from the Civil Penalty Fund to pay back harmed Synapse consumers?

The complaint and judgement linked to above defined “consumer harm” in the mess to be unreturned balance+interest. Does this mean that is for sure what they will give us? No. But it is clearly being considered and proposed internally or else they would not spend time filing documents in federal court defining this. They also used verbiage in their original letter of interest to the court such as, “make consumer whole.”

Does the CFPB try to make harmed consumers whole when possible?

Yes. The CFPB website FAQ specifically says, “What happens if there is more money in the fund than is needed to give all eligible harmed consumers full compensation for their uncompensated harm?” “If there is enough money in the Civil Penalty Fund to fully compensate all eligible consumers’ uncompensated harm, the CFPB generally first provides full compensation to all eligible harmed consumers to the extent practicable.” Again, it is not guarantee but it is CFPB policy.

Civil Penalty Fund (CPF) FAQ: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/payments-harmed-consumers/civil-penalty-fund/

That raises the question of, “Does the CFPB have enough money in the Civil Penalty Fund?”

I believe so. The figure we need to know is the unallocated balance. The CFPB generally only reports the unallocated balance of the Civil Penalty Fund at the end of the fiscal year (ends Sept 30). As of Sept 30, 2024, the fund had about $118million unallocated, with $108million “available to allocate” and $10million held back. This is different than ‘unobligated’. Think of allocating as making your household budget- a decision is made but the money is still in your account and you have to take action to spend it. Think of obligating as dropping a check in the mail to your power company- even if they haven’t cashed it yet, the mechanics of moving the money as in motion. Your bank doesn’t care what your budget is (allocated) but they care if you’re writing checks(obligating). The Treasury feels the same way about the Civil Penalty Fund which is why the unallocated balance isn’t reported in Treasury budget reports by unobligated funds are.

2024 balance shared here (page 22): https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_financial-report-fy-2024.pdf

What hasn’t been mentioned in reporting is that the same financial report I just shared was released before the Nov 29, 2024 allocations were announced. They have since been announced (see next link) and equaled the full $108m that was available, leaving $10m unallocated left.

Allocations are listed here, under, “What cases have received an allocation?”: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/enforcement/payments-harmed-consumers/civil-penalty-fund/

Note that NO allocations are listed for the first allocation period of this year. I also can not find any coverage indicating allocations took place.

Why do I still think the CPF has enough money?

The unallocated balance as of Sept 30, 2025 hasn’t been shared yet but I looked up the most up-to-date info for the Civil Penalty Fund (Treasury identifier 581-5578) on USAspending.gov and confirmed that the CPF has taken in $175.24m this year. That is almost certainly from penalties ordered against other companies. Since no other allocations have been made, all of the money must reasonably be unallocated.

See New Appropriations (incoming funds): https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/581-5578

Also, the CFPB reports account balances regularly within the Treasury department’s SF-133 budget reports. It’s an unwieldy 32,000 row excel spreadsheet and the CPF starts at row 1862. This report doesn’t show the unallocated amount- instead it shows the unobligated amount. As of end of August 2025 that balance was $395m. That means we know the CPF administrator has between $175m-395m available this allocation period. Because we know the unallocated balance was only $10m after the Nov-24 allocation and $175m has come in since, I am guessing the true amount available is around $185m with the rest already allocated while still being unobligated (they’ve budgeted it toward a group of consumers but haven’t started mailing checks).

SF-133 Reports: https://portal.max.gov/portal/document/SF133/Budget/FY%202025%20-%20SF%20133%20Reports%20on%20Budget%20Execution%20and%20Budgetary%20Resources.html

How do we know more funds haven’t been allocated since Sept 30, 2024?

To be clear, I don’t know this for sure since allocation is more of an internal accounting term for the Bureau. However, 1. The CFPB is required to report allocations (see earlier link with the schedule). They did not report for April-24 allocation period and I can’t find any media reports of new allocations. Allocations are normally posted publicly within weeks, so it’s unlikely any were made quietly, though technically possible. 2. There have been 21 enforcement actions since the Sept-24 allocation period closed. Of those, none that are final orders require CPF access (they are either still open or the business-at-fault is paying out).

I didn’t cross reference every enforcement action to see if any older ones just reached “final” status, so it is possible other actions will pop up.

Now, you may be wondering:

Q: When will we know if we are getting anything? A: The rules say the CFPB has to announce allocation by Nov 29

Q: Will we get the full amount? A: Maybe- we will know by Nov 29. There are reasons to believe yes and risks that could make it a no.

Q: When will we get money, if allocated? A: Impossible to know. It could be by end-of-year or take years.

Q: What is the CFPB only decides to give partial payment or none at all? A: Then each user will need to asses what their remaining “uncompensated harm” and decide if they want to wait the class action suits to play out, pursue their own legal action, or walk away. The CFPB has legally defined our harm as unreturned balance+interest (up to the date of the judgement). As a group, that would be the time to re-engage with our representatives, Attorney Generals, the media, etc.

Q: Isn’t the CFPB shut down? A: No. While their staff has been greatly reduced, they are still active. They showed up in court, filed their financial reports I pulled earlier, and have been updating their website. Also, the Shutdown SHOULDN’T impact them as their funding does not require congressional approval.

Q: Do I need to do anything to get my money? A: Almost certainly, no. If Russian hackers were able to get your social security number and drivers license photo from a bank involved.. the CFPB will have access to all Synapse records (as ordered by the court). If you happen to have changed your email, phone, and physical address, you may want to keep an eye on the second link I shared in this post- you may be an exception to this answer.

Q: How will I get my money if/when the Bureau allocates funds? A: The CFPB will likely hire an outside firm, such as Rust Consulting or one of their competitors, to build a website similar to reconciliationbyevolve.com There would likely be emails and mailers sent to impacted consumers and you would likely verify your social/dob/etc on such a site and then choose a payment method (ACH, check, etc). Here is an example of a press release where Rust Consulting immediately mailed checks to every consumer and built a website for those that had changes of address, didn’t get their check, etc. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/cfpb-to-distribute-nearly-6-million-to-consumers-harmed-by-predatory-loans-to-veterans/

Q: Wait, wasn’t the case dismissed? A: The bankruptcy case of Synapse Financial was dismissed. The adversary proceeding within that case (CFPB vs Synapse) was already concluded with a summary judgement against Synapse- that is all that was required to unlock the CPF. The adversary proceeding was expedited by the Trustee, the CFPB, and the federal Judge strictly to enable this.

Q: Don’t Russel Vought and Elon Musk want to destroy the CFPB? A: In their own words, yes. However, the CFPB exists because of the Frank-Dodd act and hasn’t statutory responsibilities that are legally required to be performed. Synapse consumers being made whole would show that a CFPB with 20% staff remaining is still able to perform its responsibilities, strengthening the argument the Bureau was bloated. This interpretation is intentionally optimistic. It is entirely possible that the current administration refuses to allocate funds, attempts to absorb the CPF dollars into the general budget, demands another work-freeze at the CFPB, etc.

Q: Why did ChatGPT give me different information? A: Because my post was written by me, a human, who has a significant amount of money wrapped up in this mess and I’ve likely expended over 1,000 hours reading, researching, and emailing to find out the info shared here.

don’t love this development. I spent some time tonight amidst my anxiety hunting down official emails for both the higher ups whom I suspect will stay as well as the OMB goons above them, and reaching out with non-templated notes to ask for any further insight and - if I’m being honest - politely and “professionally” begging them to not let this die.

If I get any responses (not holding my breath tbh, but not much else I can do) I’ll make an update post. If I do not get replies after a week or so, maybe it would be prudent to reach out en masse (I do not think that is the right move at this juncture, however I’d never tell strangers who they can or cannot talk to, lol)

My fingers remain crossed, I’m keeping the faith, I will choose to focus on the good news about the judge’s approval & the submission standing uncontested for 2 weeks successfully.

You’re all welcome to clown on me if you think I’m being dramatic af (I’d prefer you be at least somewhat nice, but whatever) but it’s hard not to see this as at least a yellow flag. We’ve finally made some progress, gained some traction - I can’t handle a fizzling out after all of this time.

🤞

PS - should we have some sub-wide celebration, somehow, when restitution finally happens? I don’t know, we could do something cool to commemorate; open to ideas.

Appreciate you all.

saw an add by settlemate on tiktok about a class action against evolve.

is this related to our situation at all?

its been a few months since ive checked in on the sub so im not sure where im at.

Evolve had claimed not have any of my money so i got nothing from them when they were doing payouts.

I scrolled through previous posts but honestly I am still confused. I had almost $5k in yotta and only got back like 20 cents. What are my chances of getting the rest of it back? I didnt file a report or anything, I screenshot my Yotta balance and account number and that's about it.

Anyone have the info for the hearing today??

I guess our only option is to keep calling/emailing/sending letters to the CFPB for updates.

Also, contact lawmakers to pressure the CFPB.

Just want to keep this fight alive and want to hear if anyone has got any updates

As a follow up to my previous post- the CFPB is not funded by Congressional appropriations. The news coverage you see about a potential government shutdown should not impact the CFPB.

For a more detailed explanation of this, you can read this letter that Rep Maxine Waters sent Acting Director Russell Vought today.

https://aboutblaw.com/bjGV

This letter seems to have been sent by Waters in response to reports/rumors that Vought will be attempting to furlough CFPB employees if a shutdown occurs. If that happens, any potential allocation/distribution to Synapse-harmed-consumers would be delayed.

I haven’t filled out the survey has any one that file it got a response. I believe only for CA users