CFPB reports consumer complaints topple 700k
By:   //  Consumer News

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a report for the close of 1015 that shows the agency has handled more than 790,000 complaints.

As of Jan. 1, the bureau reported that it has handled complaints across all products, highlighting consumer complaints about financial services such as debt settlement, check cashing, money orders, and credit repair. Officials noted their latest report shows that consumer complaints about these types of financial services generally revolve around issues of fraud or problems with reliable customer service.

“Many of the financial services examined in the report are used by people struggling to make ends meet who can least afford to have issues with their financial products,” CFPB director Richard Cordray said. “The bureau will continue to use complaints submitted about these products to target bad actors in the financial marketplace.”

Some of the highlights from the statistics in the most recent snapshot report include:

Complaint volume: For December, the three most-complained-about financial products were credit reporting, debt collection, and mortgages, together representing slightly over two-thirds—68 percent—of complaints submitted. Overall, the CFPB saw a one percent decrease in complaint volume between November and December.

  • Product trends: In a year-to-year comparison examining the time periods of October to December, complaints about prepaid products rose 233 percent. Between Sep. 1 and Nov. 31, the CFPB received 459 complaints about prepaid products, mostly from one company.
  • State information: Of the five most populous states, Illinois displayed the sharpest rise—23 percent—in complaint volume during the same three month time period — October to December — between 2014 and 2015.
  • Most-complained-about companies: The three companies the CFPB received the most complaints about between August and October of 2015 were Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. Company-level information should be considered in the context of company size and activity in the relevant market.

Geographic spotlight: New York

The CFPB highlighted New York and the New York metro area for the report’s geographic spotlight. As of Jan. 1, consumers in the New York metro area — which comprises parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut as well as New York City — have submitted 57,700 of the 790,000 complaints the CFPB has handled.

Consumers from New York state as a whole have submitted 50,400 complaints. Findings from the New York complaints include:

  • Mortgages are the most-complained-about product: Mortgages have been the most-complained-about product in New York and the New York metro area. Of the 57,700 complaints submitted by consumers in the New York metro area, 27 percent have been related to mortgages. For New York as a whole, 25 percent of the 50,400 complaints were mortgage related.
  • New York complaint volume mostly mirrors national trends: Although consumers in New York (21 percent) and the New York metro area complain about debt collection at a lower rate than consumers nationally (26 percent), complaint volume about other financial products is similar to that on the national level.
  • Most-complained-about companies: JPMorgan Chase, Experian, and Equifax were the three most-complained-about companies from consumers in the New York metro area.
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