Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Rocks Again
Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released the nation’s largest searchable public database of federal consumer financial complaints, including information on more than 90,000 individual complaints on mortgages, student loans, bank accounts and services, other consumer loans, and credit cards.
“By sharing these complaints with the public, we are creating greater transparency in consumer financial products and services,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray, "The database is good for consumers and it is also good for honest businesses. We believe the marketplace of ideas can do great things with this data.”
The database lets us see what consumers complained about and why, as well as how and when the company in question responds. The live database updates daily. We can track, sort, search, and download information, conduct analyses, perform research, and build our own visualizations, charts and graphs. Dude.
Here's a snapshot of complaints about private student loans:
The CFPB has handled more than 4,600 private student loan complaints. The most common type of student loan complaint relates to repaying the loan, such as fees, billing, deferment, forbearance, fraud, and credit reporting (63 percent). Consumers struggle with the limited payment deferment options permitted in their loan agreements, especially when they have not found employment by the time they must begin repaying their loans, and because deferments often are limited to six months. Another common type of complaint addresses problems consumers confront when they are unable to pay, such as issues related to default, debt collection, and bankruptcy (31 percent). Approximately 3,400 (74 percent) private student loan complaints have been sent by Consumer Response to companies for review and response. The remaining private student loan complaints have been referred to other regulatory agencies (20 percent), found to be incomplete (4 percent), or are pending with the consumer or the CFPB (2 percent). Companies have already responded to approximately 3,200 complaints or 94 percent of the complaints sent to them for response. The median amount of monetary relief reported was approximately $1,250 for the approximately 225 private student loan complaints. Consumers have disputed approximately 600 company responses (19 percent) to private student loan complaints.
Doing something innovative with the data? Tweet @CFPB using the hashtag #CFPBdata.
View the CFPB's Snapshot of Consumer Complaints
Have a problem with a financial product? Lodge your complaint here: www.consumerfinance.gov/Complaint
