For those of you keeping score at home, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau passed a milestone 10 days ago, surpassing the 1 millionth published complaint it has received since it started accepting them nearly seven years ago.
While debt collection-related complaints have been the most frequently submitted area of concern for consumers, the 1 millionth complaint was not related to debt collection.
The 1 millionth complaint was from a consumer who said that a credit or debit card had been opened in his or her name by someone else as a result of identity theft. Wells Fargo was the financial services organization that was cited in the complaint.
That complaint was one of more than 350 that came in on March 22.
The CFPB does not publish every complaint it receives. There are a set of criteria that must be met in order for a complaint to be published on the CFPB’s complaint website. Those criteria are: a complaint must (a) not be duplicative of another complaint at the Bureau from the same consumer; (b) not be a whistleblower complaint; (c) involve a consumer financial product or service within the scope of the Bureau’s jurisdiction; and (d) be submitted by a consumer (or his or her authorized representative) with an authenticated commercial relationship with the identified company.
In his semiannual report to Congress, released yesterday, CFPB acting director Mick Mulvaney provided a breakdown of the categories of complaints that have been received by the CFPB. Debt collection, not surprisingly, was at the top of the list.
