CFPB Sees Record Consumer Complaints

The federal Consumer Finance Protection Board was set up in 2011 to regulate the consumer finance area. As part of that duty, it allows Americans to submit complaints. Due to the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic, it is seeing a record number of submitted complaints. The Hill reports:

CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger told reporters during a Friday press call that the financial watchdog agency received more complaints from consumers in April than any other month since the agency began tracking and cataloguing them in December 2011.

The bureau received 42,774 complaints in April compared to 36,690 in March, Kraninger said, a 15 percent increase that rose along with the number of Americans who contracted COVID-19 or lost their jobs because of the measures to slow its spread.

With many Americans losing a job or otherwise struggling with finances, this increases comes as no surprise. U.S. PIRG reports a massive increase in credit report complaints:

Credit reporting always has been among the leading sources of complaints, but during the pandemic, the total number of those complaints has surged by 86 percent. As a percentage of overall complaints, they accounted for 65 percent in July, compared to 54 percent in February.

…

The recent surge in credit reporting complaints has been driven by nearly double the number of complaints about incorrect information. Nearly three out of four of these complaints allege that information on a consumer’s credit report belongs to someone else. Consumer complaints have also spiked about delayed investigations into credit problems, and investigations that do not result in a fix.

Many financial institutions stopped or were made to stop evictions, ejectment, and repossessions for several months. With those actions starting back up, the number of complaints is expected to rise.