CFPB Releases its April 2016 Complaint Report

The CFPB released its April 2016 complaint report which is the tenth in its series of monthly complaint reports.  According to the Monthly Complaint Report (Vol. 10), as of April 1, 2016, the CFPB has handled approximately 859,900 complaints, including approximately 26,500 complaints in March 2016.

Complaints about “other financial services” showed the greatest percentage increase from January-March 2015 (126 complaints) to January-March 2016 (193 complaints), representing about a 53 percent increase.   “Other Financial Services” includes complaints about debt settlement, check cashing, credit repair, refund anticipation checks, and money orders.  Payday loan complaints showed the greatest percentage decrease from January-March 2015 (489 complaints) to January-March 2016 (420 complaints), representing about a 14 percent decline.  Debt collection complaints represented more than any other type of complaint, representing about 31 percent of complaints submitted in March of 2016.  Debt collection, credit reporting, and mortgage complaints continue to be the top three most-complained-about consumer financial products and services, collectively representing about 69 percent of complaints submitted in March 2016.

This month the CFPB spotlighted Mortgage complaints.  The majority of complaints about mortgages are those when consumers are faced with difficulty making payments, including prolonged mitigation review processes in which the same documentation was repeatedly requested, and receiving conflicting and confusion foreclosure notifications.  Other mortgage complaints involved confusion over loan transfers and communication issues with servicers.

For this month’s complaint report California is the CFPB’s geographical spotlight.  As of April 1, 2016, about 118,900 complaints were from California consumers, of which about 42,500 (36 percent), 15,500 (13 percent), and 14,700 (12 percent) were from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Riverside, respectively.