North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall sat at the front of a nondescript conference room and brandished an assortment of colorfully-packaged THC gummies.
To Marshall’s right sat Congresswoman Deborah Ross and the former director of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra. To Marshall’s left, a contingent of attorneys from the North Carolina Justice Center.
The secretary of state wasn’t offering Wake County’s congressional representative an edible—she was making a point about the dangers of trademark infringement. All the gummies were packaged to look like candy: Starbud, Stoner Patch, Stony-O, and most flagrantly, “Doritos,” which looked just like the real thing save for an inconspicuous label.
“You and I think it’s funny, but there’s a documented case in the Virginia Beach area where a four-year-old consumed everything in the package and died,” Marshall said.
As part of its broader mandate to strengthen the state’s economy, Marshall’s office is charged with protecting people and businesses from financial fraud, which can mean investigating counterfeit goods, warning against financial scams, and prosecuting violators. She’s seen more than her fair share of scams since she took office 28 years ago, and right now, they’re proliferating dangerously: fake charities that capitalize on environmental disasters; counterfeit pharmaceuticals; dubious text messages and robocalls; illegal price hikes; online “pig butchering” schemes targeting vulnerable and elderly people.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has kneecapped the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by stopping work at the agency and repeatedly attempting to fire nearly all of its employees. Without a fully-functional CFPB, there’s minimal federal protection against the wave of suspicious financial practices and products inundating consumers.
Marshall, Ross, and Chopra—who President Biden tapped to lead the CFPB in 2021 and President Trump fired this February—gathered with a handful of lawyers and consumer advocates in Raleigh on Thursday to talk about potential solutions. It took most of the allotted hour for them to catalog the extent of the problem.
“Right now we see a CFPB, a [Federal Trade Commission], a Justice Department really in a coma, not enforcing anything,” Chopra said.
Peter Gilbert, litigation director for the NC Justice Center, chimed in: “We have a great relationship with our attorney general’s consumer affairs division. We do what we can, but it’s never going to be enough to fill the gap in the absence of robust federal enforcement.”
States could theoretically enact more stringent consumer protection laws to counterbalance the federal oversight vacuum. North Carolina already has some solid protections on the books, according to the NC Justice Center’s Jason Pikler—including a 2009 law that prevents debt buyers from getting default judgments against vulnerable borrowers.
However, “the current climate in the legislature doesn’t allow us to pass those kinds of laws,” Pikler said, nodding to the Republican-controlled General Assembly. “What we’re trying to do is hang on to the enforcement mechanisms that we have, and use those the best we can for consumers.”
North Carolina doesn’t do enough to protect tenants, the officials said, even though housing and the cost of living are top issues. They discussed how in-demand housing is being bought up by LLCs, prices are going up, and a decimated federal Department of Housing and Urban Development isn’t regulating evictions. (Wake County had almost 20,000 evictions in 2024, according to the NC Housing Coalition.)
“I’m worried that the eviction tactics of corporate landlords really pushes the edge,” Chopra said.
Homeowners, meanwhile, are vulnerable to sky-high and climbing insurance rates and predatory loans.
With federal regulators asleep at the wheel, the North Carolina officials are using consumer education to fill the gap.
“I can’t prosecute our way out of the problem, so we’ve got to use education as a strong, important component,” Marshall said.
Nonprofits like Legal Aid and the NC Justice Center also play an important role, but this summer the state legislature passed (and Governor Stein signed) a bill that, among other things, freezes a major statewide legal aid fund. The NC Justice Center stands to lose about $1.2 million a year as a result, according to interim executive director Dana Mangum.
With the current climate for consumer protection and legal aid looking so bleak, many of the officials in the room seemed to be looking to a post-Trump future for a sliver of hope.
“We need you to stay alive and to come back bigger and more powerful,” Chopra told the NC Justice Center contingent.
“We’re planning for when the take-back happens,” Ross agreed.
Chloe Courtney Bohl is a Report for America corps member. Follow her on Bluesky or reach her at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].