The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently released a “special edition” of its standard monthly complaint report.  The report gives statistics on the number and types of complaints received by the CFPB, both nationally and broken down by state.  By providing data on all fifty states and the District of Columbia, the CFPB gives consumers and businesses insight into the types and volume of complaints handled by the agency, and state-by-state variations in consumer concerns.

In a message given just prior to the report’s release, CFPB Director Richard Cordray stated, “By sharing complaint data publicly, we empower consumers with information they can use to make decisions and give public officials insight into issues affecting our communities.”

The report gives both a national and state-by-state snapshot look at:

  • Complaint totals – 1,163,156 complaints have been handled since July 2011.
  • How states compare – California, Florida, New York, and Texas had the highest volumes of total complaints.
  • Complaints submitted by “specialty populations” which includes service members, veterans and their families, and older consumers.
  • The top subject matter areas about which the CFPB receives complaints – Nationally, the top three complaint areas, by volume, were debt collection, mortgage and credit reporting-related issues.  The state-specific data shows how the number of complaints in a given subject matter area compares to the national average.
  • Complaint trends – The subject matter area with the largest change in complaints from last quarter was student loans, with complaints up 216%.
  • The percentage of timely company responses to complaints received by the CFPB – Nationally, companies have responded in a timely manner (within 15 days or less) 97% of the time since the CFPB began receiving complaints in 2011.

A copy of the report is available here.