CFPB Releases October 2016 Monthly Complaint Report

The CFPB released its October 2016 complaint report which is the fifteenth in its series of monthly complaint reports. According to the Monthly Complaint Report (Vol. 16) as of October 1, 2016, the CFPB has handled over 1,008,500 complaints, including approximately 26,400 complaints in September 2016.

Complaints about student loans showed the greatest percentage increase from July – September 2015 (638 complaints) to July – September 2016 (1,248 complaints), representing about a 96 percent increase. Payday loan complaints showed the greatest percentage decrease from July – September 2015 (458 complaints) to July – September 2016 (352 complaints), representing about a 21 percent decline. Debt collection complaints represented more than any other type of complaint, representing about 7,352 of the total cumulative complaints (26,400) in September 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 63 percent of complaints submitted in September 2016.

This Month the CFPB spotlighted prepaid complaints. The CFPB handled approximately 6,000 money transfer complaints since July 21, 2011 representing 6 percent of total complaints. Of prepaid complaints, the most common are managing, opening or closing an account represented 32 percent and unauthorized transactions or other transaction issues represented 30 percent. Complaints about frauds and scams, fees, adding money, advertising and overdraft, savings or reward features common complaints.  

Consumers frequently complain about questionable transactions posted to their prepaid cards and difficulty using prepaid cards after purchase. Additional complaints revolve around receiving prepaid cards as a refund and not being able to active the card, access the funds, or both, subsequently resulting in the assessment of fees for dormancy and depleting the card balance. Other issues involve companies issuing cards without proper verification resulting in the theft of their funds and balance discrepancies for cards when consumers were unable to check their balance and transaction history on online or were not provided with statements.

For this month’s complaint report North Carolina and the Charlotte metro area is the CFPBs geographical spotlight. As of October 1, 2016, about 27,600 complaints were from North Carolina consumers, of which about 8,000 (29 percent) were from the Charlotte metro area.