Pandemic, Credit Reporting Issues Send CFPB Complaints Up 54 Pct

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) found in its Consumer Response Annual Report for 2020 that there were about 542,300 complaints last year, according to a press release.

That’s an almost 54 percent increase from 2019 when there were 352,400 complaints, the release stated.

The uptick in complaints was directly related to the pandemic, CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio said in the release.

“The pandemic has been among the most disruptive long-term events we will see in our lifetimes,” he said, according to the release. “Not surprisingly, the shockwaves it sent across the planet were felt deeply in the consumer financial marketplace. Consumer complaints provide the CFPB with an important real-time window into where consumers encounter problems in the marketplace. The CFPB expects companies to respond to these concerns and that consumers receive responses from companies that address the issues consumers raise in their complaints.”

According to the release, 58 percent of the complaints were related to credit and consumer reporting, followed by debt reporting (15 percent), credit card (7 percent), checking or savings (6 percent) and mortgage complaints (5 percent).

In April, as the pandemic was beginning, consumers started to rapidly up their number of complaints, with over 3,000 complaints per month mentioning the coronavirus. Overall, there ended up being 32,100 complaints mentioning the coronavirus in 2020, the release stated.

Among the states, consumers from Florida had the most complaints per capita, according to the release. And there were 40,800 complaints from self-identified servicemembers, veterans and military families.

PYMNTS previously reported on the influx of complaints, writing that the CFPB fell short of its duties by weakening protections against predatory payday lenders. In July, CFPB complaints were up 50 percent year over year, and the pandemic was mentioned in around one in five complaints having to do with mortgages, student loans or vehicle financing from March 1, 2020.

According to Frontier Group’s Gideon Weissman, the situation showed how bad fraud had become since the pandemic started.