CFPB Complaint Volumes Rise in 2017

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a special edition of its monthly complaint report yesterday, showing continued increases in the volume of complaints.

“As of June 1, 2017, the Bureau has received more than 1,218,600 complaints,” said Richard Cordray, director of the CFPB in a statement. “The complaints handled in 2016 has seen a 7% increase compared with those of 2015.”

Among the complaints submitted by servicemembers, veterans, and their families, debt collection was the No. 1 category by volume. The CFPB has handled 74,784 complaints submitted by servicemembers since 2011, and the complaints handled in 2016 increased 8% compared with the year prior.

The majority of consumer loan complaints were about vehicle loans in calendar year 2016, according to CFPB’s complaint snapshot report released in June 2016. Of the 38,500 complaints in this category submitted to the Bureau, 52 percent were about vehicle loans. The 2017 version of the report will be published in July and should have more details about this year’s auto loan complaints, spokesman Samuel Grifin told Auto Finance News.

In fact, AFN’s analysis of the CFPB’s complaint database is showing signs of stabilization. The overall number of complaints submitted to the bureau has risen, but some of the largest lenders were experiencing a slowdown in the rate of increase.

Around 2% of debt consumers complained about auto loans in calendar year 2016, Grifin added, referring to CFPB’s Consumer Response Annual Report released in March. Among the approximately 16,400 auto loan complaints, 48% of the consumers complained about retails loans, while 8% of consumers complained about vehicle leases.

In 2016, consumer loan complaints with the sub-product of vehicle loan were submitted more frequently than other sub-products, the report stated. In these complaints, consumers complained about payment processing issues, including not having their payments applied to their accounts in a timely and correct manner. Additional details for how much of the debt collection or credit reporting complaints are auto-related will be forthcoming, Grifin said.

It is worth noting that debt collection and mortgage complaints still account for half of the roughly 1.2 million complaints the Bureau has received as of June 1. California, Texas, and Florida were the three states that have the biggest complaint volumes as of June 1.