CFPB Issues Request for Information Regarding the Public Reporting Practices of Consumer Complaint Information

The CFPB recently issued a Request for Information concerning its public reporting practices of consumer complaint information, and whether changes to the practices may be appropriate.  The Request focuses on the reporting and publication of this information, not on consumer inquiries and related process activities (which the CFPB indicated it will address in a future Request for Information), and the Request emphasizes that it is seeking “statutorily-permissible suggestions” in response to the items included in the Request.

The CFPB is seeking feedback on all aspects of its consumer complaint reporting and publication practices, including comments regarding the frequency, content, and methodology of the reporting on consumer complaints, as well as the publication process of consumer complaint information.

Regarding the content of its reporting on consumer complaints, the CFPB would like to hear from all interested members of the public as to whether it should include more, less, or the same amount of reporting on state and local complaint trends, whether it should provide more, less, or the same data fields in the Consumer Complaint Database, and whether it should share more, less, or the same amount of information on month-to-month trends or particular products and services, to name a few items of note.

Some additional questions the CFPB would like to receive responses to include, but are not limited to, the following: should it provide more, less, or the same amount of context for complaint information, particularly with regard to product and service market size and company share, including what data set(s) or data source(s) it should use; whether it should notify the most-complained-about companies of their inclusion in a CFPB report prior to publication and invite those companies to comment; and whether it should adjust access levels to complaint information for external stakeholders (e.g., financial institutions and the public).

All comments must be received by June 4, 2018, and may be made electronically, by email, mail, or hand delivery/courier.

For more information, the Request for Information is available here: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2018-03-06/pdf/2018-04544.pdf.