WASHINGTON—The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has gone live with an enhanced public-facing consumer complaint database that includes for the first time more than 7,700 consumer accounts of problems they are facing with financial companies concerning mortgages, bank accounts, credit cards, debt collection, and more.
The CFPB has also published a Request for Information seeking input on whether there are ways to enable the public to more easily understand and make comparisons of the complaint information.
“The Bureau's work improves as we hear directly from consumers," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. "Every complaint tells us what people are facing in the financial marketplace. Publishing these consumer stories today is a historic milestone that we believe will lead to better outcomes for everyone."
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which created the CFPB, established the handling of consumer complaints as part of the CFPB’s work. The CFPB began accepting complaints with its opening in July 2011, and currently accepts complaints on many consumer financial products, including credit cards, mortgages, bank accounts, private student loans, vehicle and other consumer loans, credit reporting, money transfers, debt collection and payday loans.
As of June 1, 2015, the Bureau said it has handled more than 627,000 complaints, with mortgages and debt collection being the most frequent topics. Through the complaint handling process, the Bureau said it has helped consumers secure hundreds of thousands of responses from companies as well as millions of dollars in monetary relief.
In June 2012, the CFPB launched its Consumer Complaint Database, which it called the nation’s largest public collection of consumer financial complaints. It includes basic, anonymous, individual-level information about the complaints received, including the date of submission, the consumer’s zip code, the relevant company, the product type, the issue the consumer is complaining about, and how the company handled the complaint.
In March 2015, the Bureau finalized a policy to empower consumers to publicly share their stories when they submit complaints to the Bureau. Since launch, the CFPB reported that more than half of consumers submitting complaints to the CFPB website have “opted in” to share their accounts of what happened. Starting today, consumer narratives that have been scrubbed of personal information will be added to the complaint database on a daily basis.