CFPB releases updated Covid-19 consumer complaints bulletin

Federal Issues CFPB Covid-19 Consumer Complaints Credit Cards Servicemembers

On July 16, the CFPB released a newly updated consumer complaint bulletin analyzing complaints the Bureau has received during the Covid-19 pandemic. The bulletin analyzes complaints mentioning coronavirus-related key words (such as Covid, coronavirus, pandemic, CARES Act, and stimulus) that were received as of May 31. Complaints related to Covid-19 accounted for 8,357 of the more than 187,000 complaints the Bureau has received in 2020. Highlights of the bulletin include: (i) mortgage and credit cards are the top complaint categories for Covid-19 complaints; (ii) after the emergency declaration, the weekly average complaint volume for prepaid cards grew 105 percent, while the volume for student loans decreased by 24 percent; and (iii) 10 percent of complaints submitted by servicemembers were Covid-19 related compared to six percent of non-servicemember complaints. As previous covered by InfoBytes, in May, the Bureau issued the first complaint bulletin analyzing approximately 4,500 Covid-19-related complaints received at that time.

Additionally, the CFPB announced new capabilities for the public Consumer Complaint Database, including the ability to (i) view complaints over time to review for trends; (ii) refine visualizations based on user selected criteria; and (iii) aggregate complaints by various categories, such as issues and products.