For months, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been at the center of a battle that some have called a “Rome-versus-Avignon power struggle” — but most Americans aren’t really paying attention. Simply put, the CFPB stops financial businesses from harassing and defrauding people. The agency is virtually the only major accountability-oriented reform to emerge in response to the 2008 economic collapse, and its demise would leave millions of people largely defenseless against predatory financial corporations.

A cursory look at the CFPB database demonstrates why it exists. The agency’s website features over a million complaints from people reporting that they’re being scammed and intimidated, often by third-party debt collectors. Complainants report being harassed over debts, including ones that don’t belong to them or have already been discharged. Collectors call debtors’ employers and family members, dangling personal information and threatening to take legal action or ruin the target’s credit score if they don’t pay a fee.

The CFPB’s job is to investigate these claims and bring these corporations to heel. Those who submit complaints are lucky to be aware they have recourse; many in similar situations pay the fees, however illegitimate, just to get financial companies off their backs.