Consumer Response

Today marks a major step forward in our work to protect consumers. In a first by a federal financial regulator, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will share with the public individual-level consumer complaint data received by the CFPB.

Check out the Bureau’s policy statement for more details.

What does this mean for consumers?

No longer will consumer complaints only be known to the individual complainant, bank, regulator, and those in the public willing to pursue this information through the Freedom of Information Act. Instead this data-rich window into consumer financial issues will be widely available to everyone: developers, policymakers, journalists, academics, industry, and you. Our goal is to improve the transparency and efficiency of the credit card market to further empower American consumers.

And just to be clear, no personally-identifiable information, such as a consumer’s name, credit card number, or mailing address will be made available via the Consumer Complaint Database.

The Bureau’s Consumer Response function receives consumer complaints on a wide variety of products including credit cards, mortgages, student and other consumer loans, and other bank products (such as checking and savings accounts). And while the Consumer Complaint Database initially will contain only credit card complaints, the Bureau is proposing to extend the Database to all other consumer financial products and services covered by the CFPB.

What happens when a consumer files a complaint?

When a consumer files a complaint, Consumer Response intake specialists review each one for completeness, jurisdiction, and non-duplication. Complaints that meet these criteria are then forwarded to the appropriate company (bank or nonbank) for review and resolution. Companies are given 15 days to provide a substantive response to each consumer complaint, and are expected to resolve and close all but the most complicated complaints within 60 days.

Consumer Response prioritizes for investigation certain complaints based on a handful of risk-based criteria including the failure of a company to respond in a timely manner and those in which the consumer disputes the company-provided resolution. When potential legal violations are detected, Consumer Response works closely with other parts of the Bureau including the offices of Supervision, Enforcement, and Fair Lending to ensure potential violations are dealt with appropriately.

Throughout this process, consumers have the ability to log into the CFPB’s website to check the status of their complaint (and, when appropriate, dispute the resolution provided by the financial institution).

Why beta?

Today, we’re releasing the beta version of the Consumer Complaint Database. Why beta? While the complaint information in the database is actual data, the functionality, data fields, and “look and feel” of the database are all in the beta stage of development. In other words, this version of the Consumer Complaint Database is only the beginning. In addition to potentially enlarging the Database to include all other consumer financial products and services covered by the Bureau, we are looking into potentially expanding it in a number of other ways. These include the possible addition of narrative fields (to the extent we can do so while protecting personally-identifiable information), more sub-product and sub-issue data fields, regular and normalized data visualizations, and expanded data tools.

Lastly, you will note that initially the Database only contains complaints received by the CFPB on and after June 1st. Additional retroactive data will be added when we remove the “beta” tag later this summer.

What do you think?

We encourage you to tell us what you think about the Consumer Complaint Database by telling your story. All comments and suggestions are welcome.

Scott Pluta is the Chief of Staff and Acting Assistant Director for Consumer Response at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Dodd-Frank Act requires the CFPB to share consumer complaint information with the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and other state and federal agencies. Last August, the Bureau took the first step towards fulfilling this mandate by signing an agreement with the FTC that allows the CFPB to access consumer complaints in the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel system. (more…)

We recently launched the first phase of a new system to help consumers who have problems with auto loans and other types of installment loans, such as loans to buy a refrigerator. Just like the credit card and mortgage complaints within our purview we started taking last year, we will forward complaints for these new products to the appropriate financial institution for review and resolution. (more…)

Since we opened our doors, student loan borrowers have told us about some of the frustrations they sometimes face with their lenders, servicers, and debt collectors. Borrowing for college should be the best investment you’ll make, but for many Americans, paying off those student loans is a real challenge.

For several years, federal student loan borrowers have had the Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid Ombudsman to help bring their concerns to financial institutions. But for millions of students and their families, federal student loans don’t cover the full cost of college and they need private student loans to make ends meet.

However, private student loans – which don’t always carry the same consumer protections as federal student loans – have been overseen by a patchwork of government agencies. In the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Congress established an Ombudsman for private student loans within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to assist borrowers with private student loan complaints. This means a single federal agency is now responsible for watching out for all students and families who choose to borrow private student loans.

Today, we are open for business and ready to hear from you. To ask a question, file a complaint, or share your story: go to www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint or call our toll-free number at 1-855-411-CFPB.

If you file a complaint, we’ll work with your lender or servicer to get a response. While we certainly can’t make your debt disappear, we can help bring your concern to your financial institution’s attention. If you don’t have a specific complaint or question, but want to tell us what is – or is not – working in the student loan market, we invite you to tell your story.

And while the Consumer Bureau has only been open for a short time, we’ve been hard at work to gather the facts and provide tools to help you make good decisions about student loans. We launched an online tool, the Student Debt Repayment Assistant, to help you navigate the maze of student loan repayment options. We also launched Know Before You Owe: student loans and worked with the Department of Education to develop a draft “financial aid shopping sheet” for schools to improve the student loan information they give to students.

Our team at the Bureau will keep working to give you the tools and the information to make sound financial decisions on student debt – and to figure out your options in case things don’t go according to plan. These days, we all seem to know someone having a tough time with their student loans, so share this new resource by e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook (just use one of the buttons below). With your participation, we can help make the student loan market work better for all of us.

Rohit Chopra is the CFPB’s student loan ombudsman.

Rich Cordray, the new Director of the CFPB, has recorded a message about the extraordinary privilege he sees in working on behalf of American consumers. (more…)

The CFPB is accepting mortgage complaints from consumers who have experienced difficulties in the housing market, including problems related to mortgage documents, mortgage servicers, and foreclosure.

As most people know, problems in the mortgage industry were a major cause of the 2008 financial crisis. As the nation’s consumer watchdog, the CFPB is here to make sure those in the mortgage industry are following Federal consumer financial laws. (more…)