Anthony LaFaziaCEO, Atlantic Training · CEO at Atlantic Training | EdTech & Safety Compliance Leader

Identifying Abusive Acts and Practices: Dodd-Frank Standards for Consumer Financial Protection

16 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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The video segment explains the Dodd‑Frank "abusive" standard used by consumer financial protection regulators. It defines an abusive practice as one that puts a consumer at an unfair disadvantage by interfering with the consumer’s ability to understand key terms, taking advantage of the consumer’s lack of knowledge about risks or costs, or exploiting the consumer’s reasonable trust that the organization will act in the consumer’s best interest. The speaker illustrates the standard with a concrete example: in an auto‑finance (F&I) office, a manager pressures a borrower with a high‑interest loan to buy a Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) waiver, falsely claiming the waiver is required for loan approval. Because the borrower relies on the manager’s statement, the practice could be deemed abusive under Dodd‑Frank. The segment also contains a brief promotional interjection for Atlantic Training’s Wave platform, which is not part of the regulatory discussion.

The abusive standard focuses on situations where a customer is placed at an unfair disadvantage. A practice may be abusive if it interferes with a customer's ability to understand key terms or conditions. Takes advantage of a customer's lack of understanding of risks or costs, or exploits a customer's reasonable trust in the organization to act in their best interest. For example—
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Consider a customer in the F&I office who has a high-interest auto loan approval. The F&I manager pressures the customer to purchase a Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) waiver by falsely stating that it is a mandatory requirement for the loan approval, when in fact it is an optional product. If the customer reasonably trusted the manager's statement regarding the loan requirements, this type of practice may be considered abusive.