CFPB Releases its February 2017 Monthly Complaint Snapshot

On February 28, 2017, the CFPB released a monthly complaint snapshot. As of February 1, 2017, the CFPB has handled approximately 1,110,000 complaints, including approximately 29,700 complaints in January 2017. The geographical spotlight for this month’s snapshot was Louisiana and the New Orleans metro area.

As part of its national complaint overview, the CFPB reported that complaints about student loans showed the greatest year-to-year increase of 388 percent. The CFPB noted that “[p]art of this year-to-year increase can be attributed to the CFPB updating its student loan intake form to accept complaints about Federal student loan servicing in February 2016.” Payday loan complaints showed the greatest percentage decrease, representing about a 26 percent decline. Debt collection complaints represented more than any other type of complaint, representing about 7,730 of the total cumulative complaints (29,700) in January 2017. Debt collection, student loan and credit reporting complaints were the top three most-complained-about consumer financial products and services, collectively representing about 60 percent of complaints submitted in January 2017.

This month the CFPB also spotlighted credit reporting. The CFPB handled approximately 185,700 credit reporting complaints since July 21, 2011, making credit reporting issues the third most-complained-about product—representing 17 percent of total complaints. The most common issues are problems with incorrect information on the credit reports (76%), credit reporting company investigations (9%), obtaining a report or score (7%), improper use of a credit report (4%), and credit monitoring or identity protection (4%).

The monthly complaint snapshot is available here: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-reports/monthly-complaint-report-vol-20/.