The findings come from the 2025 “National Consumer Rage” survey, which Scott Broetzmann, president and CEO of Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, said revealed a “dangerous mix of brittle systems, high stakes, and very low trust” between consumers and companies. Broetzmann noted that public reaction following the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024—including hostility toward health insurers—was a manifestation of widespread frustration and powerlessness, not an endorsement of violence.
“The lesson for companies is not that they should brace for violence; it’s that they have to take everyday customer pain seriously long before it reaches this point,” Broetzmann said.
Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League, a 125-year-old consumer advocacy group, described households being hit by “a tsunami of fees and hidden charges and tricks and traps.” She said the current environment tells companies, “go ahead, rip off, lie, cheat and if you do there will be no consequences.”
The Guardian, which published the survey results and a series of accompanying articles, reported that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been substantially weakened under the Trump administration. The acting CFPB head, Russell Vought, had dismissed or rolled back 42 agreements with companies the agency said had ripped off consumers, according to Protect Borrowers, a group of former CFPB officials. In late 2023, Toyota Motor Credit was ordered to pay $60 million after dealers sold thousands of customers unwanted insurance products; last May Vought terminated the payout agreement.
Peter Fader, a Wharton School marketing professor, said that while consumers have more choices and higher expectations than ever through innovations like delivery-on-demand, “not only does service just suck,” but consumers “are starting to realize that a lot of the cool data and technology is being used against them.”
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, 92, said consumer power “has never been weaker” and that “corporate power supremacy is staggeringly greater than 1970.” He described the outlook for consumers as “never been worse.”
Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, said regulations and lobbying to fix consumer law are “pretty much a useless premise at this moment in time.” Instead, he said civil litigation may be rising, with law firms representing consumers seeing “phones are ringing off the hook, because the federal government has abdicated its responsibility.”
The collapse of local journalism has also reduced consumer reporting. Since 2000, close to 3,500 local newspapers have vanished, a Northwestern University study found. Jane Sasseen, executive director of the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at CUNY, said many papers “have been cut so far to the bone many of them don’t even have a business section any more.”
Chad Maisel, co-author of the Groundwork Collaborative’s “Annoyance Economy” report, said that after spending an hour on hold with a company, people are less likely to attend community meetings or interact with neighbors. “It’s a very toxic cycle,” he said.