Brooke Conkle and Chris Capurso unpack Senator Elizabeth Warren's February 5 data request to major auto finance companies, buy-here-pay-here dealers, and key industry trade groups about auto repossessions.
In this episode of Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast, hosts Brooke Conkle and Chris Capurso unpack Senator Elizabeth Warren's February 5 data request to major auto finance companies, buy-here-pay-here dealers, and key industry trade groups about auto repossessions. They walk through the main categories of information sought — repossession activity and errors, consumer complaints and disputes, policies and training, vendor contracts, and handling of personal property — and discuss the tight 11-day response deadline and lack of a clear statutory hook for the request. Brooke and Chris also consider what this move may signal about future regulatory and enforcement activity in the auto finance space.
Moving the Metal: The Auto Finance Podcast — Soaring Repos and Senate Requests: Warren Targets Auto Finance
Hosts: Brooke Conkle and Chris Capurso
Aired: 2/17/26
Brooke Conkle (00:10):
Welcome to Moving the Metal, the premier legally focused podcast for the auto finance industry. I'm Brooke Conkle, a partner in Troutman Pepper Locke's Consumer Financial Services Practice Group.
Chris Capurso (00:20):
And I'm Chris Capurso, of counsel in Troutman Pepper Locke’s Consumer Financial Services Practice Group.
Brooke Conkle (00:25):
Today, we'll be discussing a new data request on auto repossessions from Senator Elizabeth Warren and the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. But before we jump in, let me remind you to please visit and subscribe to our blogs. We have two great ones that may be of interest to TroutmanFinancialServices.com and ConsumerFinancialServicesLawMonitor.com and also we have a bevy of other podcasts that you might find interesting. We have The Consumer Finance Podcast, which as you might guess, is all things consumer finance related. The Crypto Exchange, devoted to trends, challenges and legal issues in Bitcoin, blockchain, fintech and regtech. FCRA Focus, a podcast dedicated to all things credit reporting. And finally, Payments Pros, a great podcast focused exclusively on the payments industry. All of these insightful shows are available on your favorite podcast platform, so check them out.
Brooke Conkle (01:19):
And speaking of those platforms, if you like what you hear, please leave us a review and let us know how we're doing. We'd love to hear from you. Alternatively, please feel free to reach out to us directly. Our contact information can easily be found on the firm's website, Troutman.com. If you enjoy reading our blogs or listening to our podcasts, please also check out our financial services mobile app. To download, simply go to your iOS or Android app store and search for Troutman Pepper Locke. Not only does our app have all of our blog content and podcast episodes in one handy place, it also has a listing of all of the firm's financially focused attorneys. So check it out and see what you think. For today, as I mentioned, we'll be discussing a February 5th data request from Senator Warren and Chris, it's a doozy, isn't it?
Chris Capurso (02:05):
It is a doozy, you don't usually see... It's just like a website drop that this had happened and lots of parties involved, which you're going to talk about in a bit. But yeah, there's right on the website for the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. The title headline with Trump Sidelining the CFPB, Warren Launches Probe into the Auto Lending Industry as Car Repossessions Skyrocket. So if that doesn't set the tone for what you can expect these letters to be about, I don't know what will. And obviously, the website press release gets into some of the details. One thing I will say that I appreciate is, that there are actually copies of the letters available. I feel like that's not always the case, that we get the actual meat of what is being asked. So kudos for actually publishing those, I guess, I'll say. But Brooke, I mentioned that there are several different entities. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Brooke Conkle (03:02):
That's right. As you mentioned, the recipients are specifically listed on the website and it includes the five largest auto finance companies in America, a group of buy here, pay here auto servicers. But also, I think the group that was probably most curious to us were industry groups. Right, Chris? So it includes AFSA, the American Recovery Association, and the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association. So, those aren't necessarily kind of groups that we would expect to see receiving data requests from a Senate committee, an industry group. That's a new one for us, isn't it?
Chris Capurso (03:42):
It is.
Brooke Conkle (03:43):
So, Chris, tell us a little bit about kind of what the preambles for the letters. What do those say?
Chris Capurso (03:49):
Sure. So, there are probably three templates for this letter. There's the one that goes to the finance companies, ones that goes to the buy here, pay here companies, and then one that went to the trade associations with some slight variation within those specific groups, but where the variation really stands is between the groups themselves. Having said that, the preamble to the letters is generally the same across the board. And it is Elizabeth Warren discussing, I mean, the first paragraph specifically gets into the Trump Administration kneecapping the CFPB's ability to protect consumers. So again, the mood is set immediately, and she kind of gets into some of the stats that she's relying on to say that repossessions are skyrocketing, noting that default rates on car loans, car credit, if we want to be specific, are increasing at a nearly identical pace to default rates in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis.
Chris Capurso (04:47):
So, obviously pointing back to that time now, nearly two decades ago, which is sort of depressing. She also cites in some spots, the CFPB's Auto Finance Supervisory Highlights Special Edition from two and a half years ago. So obviously, you know what time period of the CFPB that Senator Warren is looking at to be kind of basing these letters off of and to be kind of going over those types of practices. One of the big things that she highlights in the letter is that there is no publicly available data or comprehensive review of error rates and auto repossessions and this whole idea of trying to get data even before we get to the questions and kind of the tenor of them. This all feels very similar to the CFPB's Auto Data Pilot from our first episode, in fact, not maybe a substance because that was trying to get it kind of different things, but just this idea of approaching the biggest players in the industry and trying to get data for what we can only guess with the CFPB, it seemed a little bit more obvious what they were trying to do with Senator Warren.
Chris Capurso (05:59):
Not entirely sure if this is going to feed legislation, if this is just to kind of tip off regulators, maybe state regulators who see this letter going out and are like, oh, those are some really good points. We should probably look into those types of things too. To the extent that maybe the data doesn't even matter, it's just the fact that she's looking for it, but every letter kind of goes into that type of detail. There are some slight differences towards the end of each letter, at least before the questions come in, discussing kind of what a finance company does, what a buy here, pay here company does, and who the trades represent.
Chris Capurso (06:36):
So there's that kind of, I mean, this is going to help myself a little bit, but you remember like applying to colleges and you write the letters and you have those fill in the blanks areas to make it look like you've done your homework and you've filled in, you've done all this background research. That's what it feels like. The substance of the letter is the same, and then there's like that paragraph at the end that's like, this is specific to you to make it seem like it was a handwritten letter just to you. So, sorry to anybody that I talked to nearly 20 years ago about going to college. But that's kind of the gist of the main section, but obviously, that's not the meat of the letters, it's the questions. And Brooke, what are the questions?
Brooke Conkle (07:16):
Yeah. So Chris, as you mentioned, these are really wide ranging data requests that specifically for auto finance companies, tend to be sort of in five particular buckets. And just as you mentioned, the overarching theme of the data request is repossession activity. That said, the requests themselves are broader than simply repossession activity, but that really is kind of the first sort of bucket of document requests. So repossession volume and structure, wrong vehicle and erroneous repossession data, complaints about errors in repossession, disputes about loan terms and the transaction itself and complaints about dealers and sellers. And that's all kind of in that first bucket which we are terming repossession activity, but just as I mentioned, this includes a lot more than repossessions.
Brooke Conkle (08:09):
So, disputes about loan terms and the transactions themselves, that's going to be separate and apart from a repossession. Complaints about dealers or sellers that an auto finance company has relationships with, again, that's different than repossession. So Chris, just as you mentioned, this is a really wide ranging request that gets at a lot of information that is not limited to repossession. The other categories of documents requested include policies, procedures and training. So that includes kind of accuracy for repossessions, use of technology in repossessions, GPS kill switches. The third bucket is error handling and consumer compensation. So processes for dealing with mistakes and compensation practices for instances where there's physical damage to vehicles or other property.
Brooke Conkle (09:02):
The fourth bucket is vendor contracts and oversights. And this is really where Senator Warren is looking at auto finance companies, vendors. So, the five largest vendors who handle repossessions, including their names, contract terms and duration and material provisions in those vendor contracts, including expected volume, payment terms and any error prevention or customer protection requirements. So really, really getting into kind of nitty gritty terms in vendor contracts related to repossessions. And then the last category of documents requested are personal property in repossessed vehicles. This is an area that has always been a touchy subject in repossession and specifically policies and training on consumer belongings. How do auto finance companies and their vendors handle, safeguard, store and return personal property found in repossessed vehicles? And Chris, just as you mentioned, there's not PII in here, but it's a lot of information and it goes back four years.
Brooke Conkle (10:07):
And the four year term is specifically set forth in the letter, but then you start to unpack a lot of these categories and those could be interpreted to go beyond a four year period. And specifically, the information about repossessions that go deeper than repossessions, and we're talking about disputes about loan terms and transactions. According to Senator Warren, this includes disputes about loan terms, including modified or COVID era loans. And it's difficult to believe, but COVID was six years ago. So that certainly is beyond the four year time limit that's set forth in the letter. So, a lot going on, a lot requested, and frankly a very short time to turn all of this over. The deadline for our response is February 16, which Chris, curiously is President's Day. So, interesting that Senator Warren wants a response on a federal holiday.
Chris Capurso (11:05):
Yeah, it's not just mattresses on President's Day.
Brooke Conkle (11:08):
Well, Chris, tell us a little bit about the differences between the letters, what's different in the industry group letters as opposed to the letters that the auto finance companies got.
Chris Capurso (11:19):
So, as far as differences, some of them are what you would expect. For example, like the finance company letter as we'll call it that, asks basically how many complaints has the finance company received about the initial seller of the vehicle? Obviously, the buy hesting because it really gets into the trade group's understanding of trends about the members, understanding of what their members are doing, which is a very interesting question. Even if you wanted to survey get the best kind of answers, like how are you going to get that in, what is 11 days? Is the exact timeline that folks had to respond to this.
Chris Capurso (12:06):
That all leads to the question, you know, why is this here? And to my point earlier, it could be performative just to show that hey, everybody out there regulating these types of industries, these are the top five finance companies, these are some of the bigger buy here, pay here's, and these are the industry trade associations that are very big in the area. And then the subject matter of the questions seems more like a playbook on, these are things you can look at, like what are the specific repossession practices? Just delving into the questions, you could kind of read up two ways. You can either read it as getting data and trying to figure these things out, but with the timeline being so unbelievably sure, it really begs the question like is this questions in the same way the CFPB created that playbook at the end of the Chopra era?
Chris Capurso (12:57):
He wasn't going to do anything with that. It was like two weeks before he left, but it was a guide to future generations. Is that what this is? Especially coming from the setif and not from a regulator. So, there are lots of questions about why these letters exist, what the reasoning was for choosing these specific folks and also what is going to come of this? I mean, by the time this gets released, that initial deadline will have passed. So, we could be looking at, maybe there was an extension or maybe folks got things in and we start to hear something about it. Who knows? I mean, with an 11 day timeline, again, I can't overemphasize how crazy of a timeline that is, I guess we're going to have to wait and see. But your best guess, Brooke, what happens next?
Brooke Conkle (13:47):
You know, Chris, it's anybody's guess, frankly. When we saw this drop late on a Thursday evening, I think one of our first question was, is there any avenue for the letter recipients to push back? And oftentimes when you see letters like this one, they usually come from regulators, but they usually cite sort of the statutory provisions that provide the right to request this type of information. And notably these letters don't have that kind of statutory hook in them. And that said, where is a statutory hook to then push back on these types of requests? So you have to balance that along with kind of a public relations issue if you're not turning over information to Congress. That's not always a great look. But Chris, just as you mentioned, where does all of this data go?
Brooke Conkle (14:37):
And as we've said, there's not PII necessarily included in these data requests, but it is a ton of information. And Chris, you mentioned the CFPB playbook that Director Chopra put forth into the universe in his final few days at the CFPB. And frankly, that is exactly what I thought of when we saw these letters come out, is that this isn't necessarily something that the Senate is going to act on or is empowered to act on, but it is an indication that Senator Warren is bringing forth these particular auto finance companies and these industry stakeholders as a finger pointing exercise and essentially calling them out to her colleagues who, many of whom are in state attorneys general's offices. So I think frankly, this may be kind of step one of a multi step act here as we go into 2026.
Chris Capurso (15:31):
Yeah. So I mean, not expecting to get breaking news on a Thursday night from a Senate letter of all things, but here we are. And with that, we'll wrap it up for today's podcast. Thank you to our audience for tuning in. Don't forget to check out for our blogs where you can subscribe to the entire blog or just the specific content you find most helpful. That's the ConsumerFinancialServicesLawMonitor.com and the TroutmanFinancialServices.com blogs. And while you're at it, why don't you head on over to Troutman.com and sign up for our Consumer Financial Services mailing list so that you can stay abreast of current issues with our insightful alerts and advisories and receive invitations to our Industry Insider webinars. And of course, please mark your calendars for this podcast, Moving the Metal, which we will be releasing every two weeks in 2026, that will generally be on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month. This one, no. And as always, if you have any questions or if we can help in any way, please reach out to us. Until next time.
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