CFPB Releases Annual Report Analyzing Consumers Complaints; Credit and Credit Reporting Continues to Top List
Last year, consumers submitted roughly 1,657,600 complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and once again complaints about credit or consumer reporting comprised the vast majority at approximately 79 percent of all complaints submitted. Nearly 1.1 million complaints about credit or consumer reporting were sent to companies for review and response.
Information about the complaints were outlined in the most recent version of the Consumer Response Annual Report, which the Bureau issued on March 29.
After credit and consumer reporting, the second most common type of complaint was debt collection, comprising seven percent of complaints, followed by credit cards (four percent), checking or savings (four percent), and mortgage (two percent).
According to the report’s executive summary, consumers raised issues related to fraudulent activity in nearly every product category. When submitting complaints about credit or consumer reporting, consumers “reported not recognizing accounts or credit inquiries on their report.” With regard to debt collections, “consumers claimed collectors were collecting on loans that the consumer never obtained and resulted from identity theft or fraud.”
As has been the case in previous years, personal loans ranked near the bottom of the list with only approximately 8,300 complaints, or 0.5 percent of the total complaints submitted. 65 percent of these complaints pertained to an installment loan, 35 percent to a personal line of credit, and 0.5 percent to a pawn loan.
As outlined in the report, complaints can be submitted to the CFPB through its website, by telephone, or by mail. 97 percent of complaints were submitted online.
