Consumer Response

We help consumers with complaints about credit cards, mortgages, student loans, checking accounts, savings accounts, credit reporting, bank services, and other consumer loans. Today, we’re announcing plans to share data from those complaints with state regulatory agencies.

This way, multiple government agencies can work on the consumer’s behalf without them having to file complaints with multiple agencies at different levels of government.

By providing real-time access to our growing database of consumer complaints, state government agencies will have a more complete picture of the markets for consumer financial product or services and be able to help more consumers in their state.

We’ll start by sharing our consumer complaints via a secure channel that protects the confidentiality of personally identifiable information. In the future, we’re planning on building ways to accept complaints and information from the agencies as well, and to make the data available to other federal agencies, state attorneys general, local agencies, congressional offices as appropriate, and other governmental organizations like the California Monitor (a program of the California Attorney General) and the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight.

What happens when I file a complaint?

When a consumer files a complaint, we screen it to make sure that it’s complete and not a duplicate of another complaint we’re already working on for that consumer. Next, we send it to the company in question and ask them to reply to the complaint within 15 days and expect them to close all but the most complicated complaints within 60 days. After the company responds, we publish a selection of the data (with information identifying the consumer removed) in our public Complaint Database.

The team that works on consumer complaints also works closely with other parts of the Bureau including our Division of Supervision, Enforcement, and Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity to address any potential violations of consumer law.

Our goal in sharing consumer complaints with state agencies is to enhance efficient, transparent, and effective government to better protect American consumers. This new capability is yet another example of the good government principles of cooperation and coordination in action. We look forward to continuing to deepen the already strong relationship we have with our partners.

Scott Pluta is the Assistant Director for the Office of Consumer Response at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In the past year we have taken big steps toward making consumer financial markets work better for consumers and responsible companies, and consumer complaints have played a major role. We began with credit card complaints in July of 2011, and as time passed, we added complaints about mortgages, bank accounts and services, private student loans, vehicle, and other consumer loans.

We are proud to announce that, starting today, we are accepting complaints about credit reports.

Credit reporting touches the financial lives of nearly each and every American. Credit reports affect whether or not you are able to get a credit card, a home loan, an auto loan, or a student loan, the ability to rent an apartment or get hired, and even tasks as simple as getting a cell phone or electricity for your home. It also can affect how affordable or expensive those things are for you.

Starting today, we can help consumers with individual-level complaint assistance on issues with their credit report. The types of complaints we can work on include:

• Incorrect information on a credit report
• A consumer reporting agency’s investigation
• Improper use of a credit report,
• Being unable to get a copy of a credit score or file, and
• Problems with credit monitoring or identify protection services.

Before you file

If you believe that there’s incorrect information on your credit report, or if you have an issue with a credit reporting company’s investigation start by filing a dispute and getting a response directly from the credit reporting company itself.

There are important consumer rights guaranteed by federal consumer financial law that are best preserved by you first going through the credit reporting company’s complaint process.

After you file a complaint with the credit reporting company, if you are dissatisfied with the resolution, file a complaint with us.

Every complaint we receive helps us understand the challenges facing consumers, and they inform and shape our priorities. Reading your complaints about credit reporting will complement work we have already started in this area, including conducting a study comparing credit scores sold to creditors and those sold to consumers and beginning to supervise of consumer reporting agencies.

Scott Pluta is the Assistant Director for the Office of Consumer Response at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

We’re excited to announce that we’re no longer in beta with our consumer complaint database.

We launched the beta version on June 19th publishing individual-level consumer complaint data — a first for a federal financial regulator.

Since that time, people have been evaluating and sharing the data on social media and in new apps. Today, we are taking additional steps to expand this service to the American people.

First, and as promised, we are releasing consumer credit card complaint data back to December 1, 2011 in the Consumer Complaint Database.

Second, thanks to all of the great feedback and insight we’ve gotten, we are removing the database’s beta tag. While we will continue to expand functionality, data fields, and the “look and feel” of the database, after performing for three months as designed and without incident, the database is no longer a beta product.

One potential area for database expansion is the inclusion of additional products and services. Over the summer we asked for public comment on this idea and got a wide range of comments from a range of interested stakeholders. We are in the process of evaluating those comments and anticipate a final Bureau decision in early 2013.

In addition to expanding the scope of the products covered by the database we continue to evaluate, among other things, the release of consumer narratives, the potential for normalization of the data to make apples-to-apples comparisons more user friendly, and the expansion of functionality to improve user experience.

Thank you for your help in getting the tool where it is today – we’re excited for what you’ll do with the data next.

Scott Pluta is the Assistant Director for Consumer Response at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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…)