March 24, 2021

CFPB: Annual Complaint Report Highlights More Than a Half-Million Complaints Received in 2020

Overall complaint volume handled by the CFPB up 54% from prior year

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) provided to Congress the Consumer Response Annual Report for 2020. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the consumer financial marketplace is reflected in the increase of complaints submitted to the CFPB. The CFPB handled approximately 542,300 complaints last year—a nearly 54% increase over the approximately 352,400 complaints handled in 2019.

“The pandemic has been among the most disruptive long-term events we will see in our lifetimes,” said CFPB Acting Director Dave Uejio. “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.”

The report reflects issues consumers reported to the CFPB in 2020 as influenced by numerous factors including changing market conditions. The report includes analyses of complaints across multiple consumer financial products and services.

Throughout the pandemic, the CFPB has monitored the pandemic-related problems and issues reported by consumers, shared complaint information with federal and state agencies, and published complaints in the public Consumer Complaint Database.

According to the CFPB report:

This report also highlights multi-year complaint trends that pre-date the pandemic, as well as how companies have responded to complaints. The report shows that:

The CFPB will issue a separate report later this year regarding complaints submitted about the NCRAs that are related to incomplete or inaccurate information on the consumers’ credit reports in keeping with its reporting requirements under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

The 2020 annual report can be found here: 2020 Consumer Response annual report

This post was originally published here.