Prepaid Complaints Drop 59 Percent, CFPB Reports
Complaints about prepaid products dropped 59 percent from September through November in 2016 compared with the same period the previous year, according to the latest CFPB Monthly Complaint Report. That drop, to 183 complaints on average per month, represents the largest percentage decrease in complaints among all the products tracked by the federal agency, and comes as the CFPB in its new report focuses on debt collection.
The agency found that complaints about student loans increased 120 percent from September through November 2016 compared with the same period in 2015, to 1,202 per month on average. That category stands at the largest percentage increase for complaints. Other categories ranked by percentage changes are:
- Bank account or service, up 36 percent to 2,787 complaints per month on average.
- Credit cards, up 32 percent to 2,514 complaints.
- Consumer loans, up 24 percent to 1,507 complaints.
- Debt collection, up 10 percent to 7,251 complaints.
- Credit reporting, up 9 percent to 4,651 complaints.
- Other financial services, up 2 percent to 170 complaints.
- Mortgages, down 2 percent to 4,251 complaints.
- Money transfers, down 7 percent to 192 complaints.
- Payday loans, down 59 percent to 334 complaints.
Debt collection is the financial product that has attracted the most complaints to the CFPB since it began accepting them in 2011, the agency said. In its complaint snapshot, the CFPB said that it has recorded some 285,000 total complaints about debt collection, with 39 percent of them having “to do with consumers reporting being contacted about debts that they no longer owed.” Many consumers complained they were never provided documentation to verify the debt, even after submitting requests for verification, the agency said.
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