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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Walmart and fintech company Branch Messenger for allegedly forcing more than a million delivery workers to use expensive checking accounts to access their paychecks, the agency announced Monday.

According to the agency’s complaint, the companies opened deposit accounts for Walmart drivers without authorization using their personal information, such as Social Security numbers. Walmart’s Spark drivers, whom the company classifies as independent contractors who deliver packages from the company’s warehouses to customers’ doorsteps, could only have their wages deposited into store accounts, the complaint says. Starting in 2021, Walmart told workers that they could lose their jobs if they didn’t use the accounts, the lawsuit says.

Accessing their earnings was a “complex process” that sometimes resulted in “weeks-long” delays, the lawsuit says, even though they were assured they would have immediate access to their pay.

According to the CFPB, drivers paid a total of $10 million in “junk fees” to transfer those wages to other bank accounts.

“Companies cannot force workers to be paid through accounts that charge junk fees to their income,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement.

The lawsuit described the typical Spark Driver as “woman, has children, does not have a college degree and has a low income.”

Walmart disputed CFPB’s claims and said it would defend itself in court.

“The CFPB’s hasty lawsuit is riddled with factual errors and contains exaggerations and blatant misrepresentations of established legal principles,” the company said in a statement on Monday. “The CFPB never gave Walmart a fair opportunity to state its case during its rushed investigation. We look forward to vigorously defending the company in a court that, unlike the CFPB, respects due process.”

In addition, CFPB accused Branch of, among other things, misleading advertising and failure to investigate and correct errors. Branch also denied the claims in the lawsuit, saying it provides “quick and easy access to funds.”

“Despite the company’s full cooperation in its investigation, the CFPB refused to cooperate with Branch in any meaningful way on this matter, instead rushing to file a lawsuit,” the company said in a statement on Monday, claiming that it was at The lawsuit is more about “media attention” and “has nothing to do with the law or protecting workers.”

The lawsuit joins the growing chorus for more protections and official classifications for gig workers who hold freelance jobs through apps like Uber, Lyft and Doordash. Earlier this month, the CFPB under the Biden administration sued JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo for allegedly failing to prevent fraud on the money-sending app Zelle.

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to choose a new CFPB director. It’s unclear what that means for this case, but “a lot will depend on who Trump chooses as CFPB director,” Jaret Seiberg, financial services policy analyst at TD Cowen Washington Research Group, previously told CNN in an email .

CNN’s Jeanne Sahadi contributed to this report.