CFPB Consumer Complaints
Top-10 Complaints by Company Consumer Complaint History Consumer Complaint by Product by Company
Frequency Distribution of Products by CompaniesFrequency Distribution of Issues by Products
Consumer Complaint Response HistoryCompany Responses Shared Publicly 
"The Company" Wins Virtually All CFPB Complaints!
CFPB Consumer Complaint: "Closed Responses" - All Companies
Summary of All Closed ResponsesClosedClosed w/ExplanationClosed w/Monetary Relief
Closed w/Non-Monetary ReliefClosed w/ReliefClosed w-o/ReliefUntimely Response
Disputes of Company ResponsesCriminal Complaints by ConsumersComplaints Referred to Other Agencies
CFPB Consumer Mortgage Complaints
Top-10 Mortgage ComplaintsAll Mortgage ComplaintsMortgage Complaint Responses Sent to Consumers
Public Mortgage Complaint Responses Company Mortgage Responses Shared Publicly
Analysis of Company Responses to Mortgage Issues
Company-Centric Design of CFPB Complaint Process
Top-25 CFPB Complaint Deficiencies"The Company Always Wins!"Credit Discrimination Guidelines
Final Policy-Disclosure of Consumer Complaint Data
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CFPB Complaint Process PresentationCFPB Complaint Process Presentation-PDF
CURRENT CFPB DATABASE MODEL

THE CURRENT CFPB COMPLAINT PROCESS IS BASED UPON FLAWED, UNSTRUCTURED DATABASE MODEL THAT WAS DEVELOPED IN 2011 BASED UPON ONE CFPB PRODUCT: CREDIT CARD, AND IS NOT CAPABLE OF SUPPORTING THE EXPANDED FINANCIAL SERVICES PRODUCTS CURRENTLY SUPPORTED BY CFPB. 
Company-Centric versus Consumer-Centric Complaint Models. 

Assessment of THE "FLAWED" CFPB Complaint Process and cfpb database, including Analysis of "thirty-five" process and architecture flaws.

As the five tables in the following section will show, the consumer protection portion of the 2011 Dodd-Frank Act has been a disaster, and although the consumer protection agency created by this act, claims success, after success, after success, ... ; the CFPB would be hard press to prove that they have "protected" the American consumers from the predatory Wall Street financial services titans. In fact, as the following three tables are for the twenty Companies to which the largest number of CFPB complaint have been filed during the past six-plus years. More than sixty-two percent of all CFPB consumer complaints were filed against twenty companies. These companies, which are hereafter referred to as "The Top-20" appeared to have discovered the flaws in the CFPB Complaint Process that allows "the Company rather than the Consumer" to benefit from the complaint process. These tables show the number of CFPB complaint filed by Company; and how these Top-20 Companies responded to consumers, and the public, respectively. The following assessment of consumer complaint filed against the Top-20 Companies between January 2011 and March 2017, is an accurate barometer of the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the CFPB Complaint Process. Companies in the Top-20, received 477,400 (64.21%) of the Total 743,427 CFPB Complaints filed against 4,168 who received at least one consumer complaints during this period.  

Top-20 CFPB Consumer Complaints by Company 
(w/2015 versus 2016 Complaint Comparisions.)
Source: CFPB Public Consumer Complaint Database 
Rank Company Name 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Total 2016 vs. 2015
1 Bank of America 583 16049 16459 10287 9833 9783 1934 64928 99.49%
2 Wells Fargo & Company 258 9452 11127 9168 9282 11205 2089 52581 120.72%
3 Equifax 621 4775 9963 12003 15971 3288 46621 133.06%
4 Experian 725 5273 10246 10828 13947 2904 43923 128.80%
5 JPMorgan Chase & Co. 374 7289 7990 7735 7968 8762 1683 41801 109.96%
6 TransUnion Intermediate Holdings, Inc. 464 3561 8040 10167 12983 2951 38166 127.70%
7 Citibank 306 5433 5878 5768 6202 8703 1642 33932 140.33%
8 Ocwen 54 3762 4813 6272 4906 3489 517 23813 71.12%
9 Capital One 246 3877 3328 3343 3690 4259 969 19712 115.42%
10 Navient Solutions, LLC. 1209 1586 2434 2102 3308 5830 16469 157.37%
11 Nationstar Mortgage 3 949 3089 4116 4039 3189 549 15934 78.96%
12 Synchrony Financial 86 1470 1592 2743 2885 3052 753 12581 105.79%
13 U.S. Bancorp 66 1527 2029 2533 2707 2618 595 12075 96.71%
14 Ditech Financial LLC 1 829 2054 2428 2693 2797 445 11247 103.86%
15 PNC Bank N.A. 34 1398 1636 1833 1594 1663 328 8486 104.33%
16 Amex 61 939 1113 1385 1684 2374 516 8072 140.97%
17 Encore Capital Group 984 2596 2173 1559 329 7641 71.74%
18 HSBC North America Holdings Inc. 40 1239 1628 1652 1302 1057 184 7102 81.18%
19 Discover 57 843 901 1015 1477 1589 370 6252 107.58%
20 SunTrust Banks, Inc. 48 1099 1125 1060 1162 1325 245 6064 114.03%
Top-20 Annual Totals 2217 59174 80941 94617 98697 113633 28121 477400 96.37%
Assessment of Top-20 Companies: CFPB Fails to Review and Monitor its Complaint Database for Trends, Patterns, and aberrations, thus between January 2011 and March 2017, more than Sixty-Two Percent of all Consumer complaints were Filed against the above Top-20 Companies.
Example: Consumer complaints received from fourteen of the Top-20 Companies increased between 2015, and 2016; and seven of these Companies had more than 20% more consumer complaint than in 2016 than they did in 2005. 

Top-20 Company's  Responses to Consumers. 
(10:1 Ratio: Red - Complaints "Closed with explanation" vs. Green - Complaints "Closed with monetary relief".)
Source: CFPB Public Consumer Complaint Database. 
Public Response to Consumer Year Consumer Complaint Filed by CFPB Total Complaints Percent Complaints
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Closed 1 1080 1382 972 1184 808 87 5514 1.16%
Closed with explanation 11 29396 61899 72328 76324 87748 20777 348483 73.00%
Closed with monetary relief 1 4966 6453 6467 6756 8254 1583 34480 7.22%
Closed with non-monetary relief 2 5970 11200 14850 14433 16786 3036 66277 13.88%
Closed with relief 541 3665 4206 0.88%
Closed without relief 1628 13863 15491 3.24%
In progress 7 2557 2564 0.54%
Untimely response 33 234 7 30 81 385 0.08%
Total Complaints 2217 59174 80941 94617 98697 113633 28121 477400 100.00%
Assessment of Top-20 Companies: The Number of Consumer Complaints "Closed with Explanation" was more than ten times the number "Closed with Monetary Relief". Example of the Failure of the CFPB Complaint Process The percentage of consumer complaints "Closed with Monetary Relief" decreased from 16.91% in 2012 down to 9.91% in 2016.
Top-20 Company's "Closed with Explanation" Responses. 
(Red: Company Responses to Complaints, not Shared Publicly.)
Source: CFPB Public Consumer Complaint
Public Response to Consumer Year Consumer Complaint Filed by CFPB Total Complaints Percent Complaints
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Company believes complaint caused principally by actions of third party outside the control or direction of the company. 1 49 21 3 74 0.02%
Company believes complaint is the result of an isolated error. 84 379 48 511 0.15%
Company believes complaint relates to a discontinued policy or procedure. 5 3 8 0.00%
Company believes complaint represents an opportunity for improvement to better serve consumers. 15 112 30 157 0.05%
Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law. 4 1012 1934 231 3181 0.91%
Company believes the complaint is the result of a misunderstanding. 1 46 334 52 433 0.12%
Company can't verify or dispute the facts in the complaint. 19 12 2 33 0.01%
Company chooses not to provide a public response. 39 25452 4028 29519 8.47%
Company disputes the facts presented in the complaint. 22 2 24 0.01%
Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response. 3 9 38952 8023 46987 13.48%
(blank) 11 29396 61899 72280 49611 41971 12388 267556 76.78%
Total Complaints 11 29396 61899 72328 76324 87748 20777 348483 100.00%

Assessment of Top-20 Companies: The lack of Public Responses from the Company virtually-cripples the CFPB Complaint Process because consumers and other consumer complaint agencies have no awareness of how previous complaint by other .

Example of the Failure of the CFPB Complaint Process: More than ninety-eight percent of the complaint responses from Companies were either blank or were not shared publicly. This practically-eliminates all capabilities of both consumers, and other consumer complaint agencies, to view a Company's responses to similar CFPB Consumer Complaints.
(The only aberration in the above table is that less than one percent of the consumer complaints filed against the Top-20, received the Company's response: "Company disputes the facts presented in the complaint". It is inconceivable, that in essence, the Company is stating that the facts presented by the consumer were not disputed 99.99% of the time; however, only 6.67% of all consumer complaints were "Closed with Monetary Relief".)
Top-20 Company Responses - Disputed by Consumers. 
(Disputes were Submitted via the CFPB Consumers Complaint Process.)
Source: CFPB Public Consumer Complaint Database 
Public Response to Consumer Year Consumer Complaint Filed by CFPB Total Complaints Percent Complaints
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Closed 1 230 327 195 302 182 16 1253 1.33%
Closed with explanation 3 7430 14342 16123 17484 17839 3527 76748 81.36%
Closed with monetary relief 1 507 733 707 810 841 156 3755 3.98%
Closed with non-monetary relief 1085 1808 1607 1582 1464 241 7787 8.25%
Closed with relief 59 513 572 0.61%
Closed without relief 447 3774 4221 4.47%
Untimely response 1 1 0.00%
Total Complaints 511 13540 17210 18632 20178 20326 3940 94337 100.00%

Assessment of Top-20 Companies: 94,337 of the total 145,150 consumer complaint disputes filed with the CFPB, were for complaint responses received from the Top-20.

Example of the Failure of the CFPB Complaint Process: 76,748 (81.36%) of disputes for Top-20 Company responses were for complaints "Closed with Explanation"; and contrarily, only 3755 (3.98%) of complaint disputes filed with CFPB against consumer complaints "Closed with monetary relief" by Top-20 Companies. 
Special Note: In April 2017, CFPB admitted that the option to dispute Company responses was not part of the Consumer Complaint Process.
Top-20 Company - Disputed Responses of Referred Complaints. 
(Complaints were Referred to CFPB by Other Consumer Complaint Agencies.)
Source: CFPB Public Consumer Complaint Database 
Public Response to Consumer Year Consumer Complaint Filed by CFPB Total Complaints Percent Complaints
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Closed 97 110 29 57 28 321 2.01%
Closed with explanation 1 2393 3337 2487 2133 1890 210 12451 78.14%
Closed with monetary relief 175 153 114 101 108 24 675 4.24%
Closed with non-monetary relief 444 321 138 94 72 9 1078 6.76%
Closed with relief 10 129 139 0.87%
Closed without relief 85 1186 1271 7.98%
Total Complaints 96 4424 3921 2768 2385 2098 243 15935 100.00%

Assessment of Top-20 Companies: 15,935 of the total 145,150 disputed Company responses were for Complaints referred to CFPB from other consumer complaint agencies.

Example of the Failure of the CFPB Complaint Process: The fact that almost eighty percent of Company "Closed with explanation" responses to complaints referred by other agencies were disputed, confirms that the CFPB Complaint Process "Does not Work"! This assessment if proven by the fact that prior to referring the consumer complaint to CFPB, referring agencies review and screen complaints to ensure that they are being referred to the proper jurisdictional agency, and the fact that the complaint is being referred, is proof that it is a legitimate consumer complaint.
(Special Note: In April 2017, CFPB admitted that the option to dispute Company responses was not part of the Consumer Complaint Process.)

Other Major Problems Found in Flawed-CFPB Complaint Process

Some of the most glaring problems we found within the CFPB Complaint Process include:

  • Companies are allowed to arbitrarily close complaints even though consumers have formally disputed the Company Response, and in most instances, their disputes include additional documentation that further authenticates and/or strengthen their original complaint. Between 2011 and March 26, 2017, consumers disputed more than one hundred and forty-five thousand Company responses, and there are not records in the CFPB Complaint Database that any of these disputes were ever reviewed by CFPB Reviewers, before being discarded. (Click HERE to see a list of all consumer complaint disputes by Company, by year.)

  • No formal CFPB review of consumer complaints are performed by CFPB, before complaints are forwarded to Company. Additionally, there does not appear to be formal CFPB reviews of any complaints closed by Companies. (Heretofore, it was believed by the consumer that this was the "Dispute Process", but it is now clear that the term dispute was a misnomer, and the more than one hundred and thirty-two thousand so-called disputes filed by consumers were discarded by CFPB.)

  • The Company is allowed to specify whether, or not, its response to a consumer can be shared publicly; and by not sharing this information, consumers have no awareness of similar complaints filed by other consumers.(More than ninety-three percent of all Company responses, were not shared publicly. See table below entitled: "Company Responses Sent to CFPB and Consumers, but not Shared Publicly",.to see annual percentages of Company responses not shared publicly. (Because Companies do not share their responses to consumer complaints publicly, it is virtually-impossible for consumer protection agencies to track and analyze patterns of potentially-fraudulent and/or criminal behavior.)

  • Complaints referred by other consumer complaint agencies, do not receive any special treatment, even though they have already been reviewed before being referred to CFPB; additionally, it does not appear that the Company is made aware of the fact that these complaints were review by another agency before being referred to CFPB. Finally, when Company closes the complaint, the response by Company, is not forwarded to the referring consumer complaint agency, and if another consumer register the same complaint, there is no ability of the referring agency to inform this consumer of the results of the prior complaint(s).

  • The CFPB Consumer Complaint Database includes ninety-five issues, which can be used by consumers to file complaints with more than forty-one hundred companies; however, all of these issues appear to be given the same CFPB ranking and/or priority. As this implies, all of these ninety-five issues are treated equally, in the CFPB complaint process; for example, a five-hundred dollar pay-day loan complaint is treated the same as a five-hundred thousand dollar home mortgage loan complaint. (Click HERE to see list of all CFPB complaint issues.).  

  • Complaints alleging serious, and possibly felonious, violations of federal and state laws are apparently handled the same as all other consumer complaints, and theoretically, there could be dozens, if not hundreds, of similar complaints; and CFPB would never refer any of these alleged criminal activities to its internal enforcement unit, or to other law enforcement agencies.(Click HERE to view all CFPB Consumer Complaint actions for these Identity theft, Fraud, and Embezzlement complaints.)

EVEN POTENTIALLY-SERIOUS, Criminal Complaints, Received no "Special Handling" by the CURRENT CFPB Complaint Process.

Data obtained from CFPB under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), shows that only two complaints were referred to this internal enforcement agency between 2011 and 2017. There were a total 8,204 of these criminal complaints during this period; and 1,522 of the Company responses to these Criminal Complaints were disputed by consumers. Given the felonious, criminal nature of these, and other complaints received by CFPB; it is incomprehensible, that at a minimum, the 1,522 disputed Identity theft, Fraud, and Embezzlement complaints, were not referred to either internal investigative departments within CFPB, or to other federal investigative agencies for further handling. Issues that require "Special Handling" include:
 
  • False statements or representation
  • Fraud or scam
  • Identity theft / Fraud / Embezzlement
  • Lost or stolen check
  • Lost or stolen money order
  • Taking/threatening an illegal action
  • Unauthorized transactions/trans. issues
The following charts show the annual distribution of the aforementioned criminal complaints filed by consumers, and the consumer's disputes of the Company responses to these felonious complaints:

CONSUMER COMPLAINTS SENT TO COMPANY BY CFPB



COMPANY RESPONSES DISPUTED BY CONSUMERS
Disputed Criminal Complaints

in may 2017, the Bogus, non-existent Consumer Complaint Dispute Option, was Finally-Removed from the CFPB Complaint process and CFPB complaint DATABASE!

Starting in May 2017, the "façade" of the Complaint Dispute Option was removed from the CFPB Complaint Process, and CFPB admitted that the more than one hundred and forty-five thousand consumer responses, heretofore known as complaint disputes, were actually only Consumer Feed-Back reports, and that the facade of a formal dispute of the Company response, would be removed from the CFPB website. More than one hundred and forty-five thousand consumer complaints were filed with CFPB between 2011 and April 2017, and the acknowledgement of CFPB that there was never any formal dispute option in the CFPB Complaint Process, changes the status of these "consumer disputes" to "consumer feedback". The following chart shows the annual "disputed" consumer complaints: 
 

"IS CFPB Really STANDING UP FOR the consumer?
As opposed to the following, which comes directly from the CFPB website home page, the public domain information contained on the CFPB Complaint Monitor website will prove that although CFPB has made a measurable contribution to protecting the American consumer from predatory lending practices that were pervasive during the past decade, it has done little to identify the scammer and predatory lenders that prey on the economically-distressed consumers. The following four standing up for you claims are impossible to believe when compared with the fact that 76.7% of all complaints sent to Companies CFPB were either Closed, or Closed With Explanation; and only 19.1% were either Closed With Monetary Relief, or Closed Without Monetary Relief. On the contrary, to what is shown below, this four-to-one rejection rate by Companies of consumer complaints proves that "The Customer Is Not Always Right!"

CFPB "STANDING UP FOR YOU" CLAIMS ARE UNSUBSTAINIATED!

 In fact, the consumer complaints contained in the current CFPB complaint database raises the following issues:

  • It is unclear how the $11.8 billion in relief, for 29 million-plus consumers were calculated; but the CFPB consumer complaint database shows that between 2011 and 2017, only 49,609 of 743,427 complaints Closed with Monetary Relief accounted for only 6.7% of all complaints filed by CFPB. (Click HERE to see a detail list of consumer complaints that were Closed with Monetary Relief.)

  • Additionally, one of these four "Standing up for you" claims were positively able to refute by the consumer relief database: this claim of 1.1 million-plus complaints handled by the CFPB Complaint Process: As of March 26, 2017, the CFPB Complaint Database included records for 743,427 consumer complaints, and the third claim is more than three hundred and fifty thousand less than that claimed by CFPB. (Click HERE to see a list by Company of all consumer complaints filed via CFPB.

  • In May 2017, CFPB acknowledged that the CFPB Complaint Process did not include a formal Dispute Option, and that what was previously known as the Consumer Dispute Option" was actually only consumer feedback. This gross-misrepresentation of an dispute option, rather than a optional consumer feedback option; resulted in more than one-hundred and forty-five thousands meaningless "optional complaint feedbacks" being submitted by consumers, who at the time, believed they were disputing the Company responses sent to CFPB.

The following chart shows the origin of all complaints found in the CFPB complaint database:


CONSUMER COMPLAINT PROCESS PROVIDES An effective means FOR sending CONSUMER complaints to COMPANIES; however, it does not perform any complaint arbitration functions, and does not intervene on the consumer’s behalf!
The CFPB provides a mechanism for consumers to submit complaints to Companies, and recording the responses received by CFPB, and relayed to the consumer. However, CFPB does not take an active role in the arbitration of the consumer's complaint, and the Company's response is simply relayed to the consumer with comments or commentary. Additionally, now that the bogus consumer dispute option has formally been removed from the process; the consumer has no appeal options available, and must retain an attorney to pursue the complaint any further. As a point of reference, the CFPB Consumer Database shows that more than seventy-six percent of all complaints submitted via the CFPB complaint process are either denied or rejected by the Company, and now that the dispute process is no longer an option, there are no mechanisms available for the consumer to appeal/dispute the Company's response.

Consumer Complaint Database IS OF LITTLE, OR NO, VALUE TO THE AVERAGE CONSUMER.

The underpinning of the "CFPB consumer complaint process", is a database that includes all consumer complaints filed with CFPB between 2011 and 2017. The CFPB Database is used to track all consumer complaints from the time they are submitted by consumers, or referred from other consumer complaint agencies; until they are closed by the Company. The CFPB Consumer Complaint Database was officially placed online on June 1, 2012, but includes more than twenty-five hundred consumer complaints that was filed with the bureau in 2011. As of March 26, 2017, this database had more than seven hundred and forty-three thousand consumer complaints, and receives more than fifteen thousand consumer complaint per month. A complete list of the more than forty-one hundred Companies that have received one or more complaints can be viewed by clicking HERE. Additionally, a printable detail description of all fields in the CFPB Complaint Database can be viewed by clicking HERE.
OTHER CONSUMER COMPLAINT/CONSUMER PROTECTION AGENCIES ARE oblivious TO THE FLAWS INHERENT IN THE CFPB Complaint PROCESS.

More than sixty-seven percent of all consumer complaints are received by CFPB via the web, and the next largest source of complaints (17.56%) are referred to CFPB from other consumer complaint agencies, such as OCC, FDIC, HUD, or Housing and Civil Enforcement Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

2011-2017 Sources of CFPB Consumer Complaints
How Complaint Received    |   Year
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Total Percent
Email 10 154 151 17 8 8 348 0.05%
Fax 10 958 2068 2319 2145 2593 526 10619 1.43%
Phone 218 6325 9491 10269 10275 12321 2139 51038 6.87%
Postal mail 47 4572 7994 11257 9489 11866 2104 47329 6.37%
Referral (from other agency) 797 27947 28179 23629 21548 24011 4560 130671 17.58%
Web 1458 32446 60343 105596 125126 140738 37715 503422 67.72%
Grand Total 2540 72402 108226 153087 168591 191537 47044 743427 100.00%
Annual Percentages 0.3% 9.7% 14.6% 20.6% 22.7% 25.8% 6.3% 100.0%  
Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database at: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaint

CONSUMER COMPLAINTS REFERRED FROM OTHER CONSUMER COMPLAINT AGENCIES
  • the consumer complaint is valid, and not just frivolous criticisms of a valid financial transaction or process for which the consumer now has "buyer's remorse",
  •  the consumer has already attempted to resolve the complaint, by personally-contacting the Company via phone, Email, fax, or website, and:
  • the complaint involves a financial or business transaction that is within the jurisdiction of the CFPB.
Unfortunately, as the following chart shows, there is NO discernable difference between the percentage of complaints being Closed without relief, regardless of whether consumer complaints are referred to CFPB by another consumer complaint agency; or they were received via Email, fax, phone, postal mail, or the web:
Referred CFPB Consumer Complaints
Type Response 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Total  Percent
Closed 778 1001 519 575 450 59 3382 2.6%
Closed with explanation 4 13432 21952 19070 17501 19726 3251 94936 72.7%
Closed with monetary relief 2404 2508 1931 1799 2001 410 11053 8.5%
Closed with non-monetary relief 2 2871 2704 2078 1623 1767 301 11346 8.7%
Closed with relief 222 1715 1937 1.5%
Closed without relief 546 6597 7143 5.5%
In progress 1 508 509 0.4%
Untimely response 23 150 14 31 50 66 31 365 0.3%
Grand Total 797 27947 28179 23629 21548 24011 4560 130671 100.0%
Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database at: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaint
* Discontinued after 2012.

COMPANY RESPONSES SENT TO CONSUMERS

 The old adage that states: "The Customer is Always Right!", definitely does not apply to today's financial transactions, and this is reinforced by the Company Responses sent to consumers filing complaints via the current CFPB consumer complaint process. As shown in the following table from 2013 through 2017, more than seventy-six percent of all CFPB consumer complaints were closed by the Company, without any relief, and only 6.67% of complaints were Closed with Monetary Relief from Company. As this implies; the old adage implying that the consumer is always right; has been supplanted by a new CFPB axiom, that asserts: "The Company is right, eighty percent of the time!"
Company Responses to Sent to Consumers
Response to Complaint     |       Year 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Total Percent
Closed 3 1600 3041 3544 4261 3735 943 17127 2.30%
Closed with explanation 23 36119 82028 118178 130902 151263 34861 553374 74.44%
Closed with monetary relief 2 6584 8920 9342 10470 11963 2328 49609 6.67%
Closed with non-monetary relief 2 7090 14160 21523 21871 23067 4396 92109 12.39%
Closed with relief* 645 4653 0 0 0 0 0 5298 0.71%
Closed without relief* 1812 16051 0 0 0 0 0 17863 2.40%
In progress 0 0 0 0 0 33 4004 4037 0.54%
Untimely response 53 305 77 500 1087 1476 512 4010 0.54%
Grand Total 2540 72402 108226 153087 168591 191537 47044 743427 100.00%
Annual Percentages 0.3% 9.7% 14.6% 20.6% 22.7% 25.8% 6.3% 100.0%  
Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database //www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaint
* Discontinued after 2012.

 "THE EMERALD-CITY FACADE OF ARBITRATIONS BY THE WIZARD"; MORE THAN 130K OF "THE COMPANY" RESPONSES DISPUTED BY CONSUMERS, WERE APPARENTLY DISCARDED BY CFPB.

"The Charade of a Consumer Complaint Dispute Option within the CFPB Complaint Process is finally Discontinued by CFPB."
In April 2017, CFPB admitted that there was never any actionable consumer dispute option within its Consumer Complaint Process; and what had been called "Consumer Disputes" from 2011 until April 2017, were actually Consumer Feedback. Unfortunately, the 145,150 consumers who submitted what they believed were disputes that would be sent to the Company for further assessment, were just being led down "The CFPB Yellow Brick Road"; and as in the emblematic City of Oz, the only thing found at the end of the yellow brick road, is "The Great and Powerful Oz, behind a facade of smoke and mirrors".
Starting in 2011, and continuing until April 2017, the CFPB Consumer Complaint Process included the option for consumers to dispute the complaint response sent by the Company. However, in April 2017, CFPB discontinued the complaint dispute process, and acknowledged that the so-called disputes that consumers had diligently submitted to CFPB for more than six years was actually treated as consumer complaint feedback by the CFPB, and was never sent to the Company for further analysis. In many, if not most instances, the complaint dispute submitted by consumers was a point-by-point repudiation of the Company's response, and included additional fact and/or evidence that further validated the consumer's original complaint. As the following table shows, eighty-five percent of the more than one-hundred and forty-five thousand so-called responses were for complaints previously "Closed" and "Closed with Explanation" by the Company:
  
Company Responses Disputed by Consumers
 Disputed Company Responses   |          Year 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Total  Percent
Closed 1 363 667 658 993 744 137 3563 2.5%
Closed with explanation 4 9162 18765 25644 29506 30667 6034 119782 82.5%
Closed with monetary relief 1 683 1009 1028 1192 1216 228 5357 3.7%
Closed with non-monetary relief 1269 2157 2386 2606 2147 359 10924 7.5%
Closed with relief 71 638 709 0.5%
Closed without relief 496 4317 4813 3.3%
Untimely response 1 1 2 0.0%
Grand Total 574 16433 22598 29716 34297 34774 6758 145150 100.0%
Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database //www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaint

DISCRIPTION OF "CLOSED WITH EXPLANATION" RESPONSES SENT TO CONSUMERS BY "THE COMPANY".

During the period of from January 2011 through March 2017, 74.4% of all consumer complaints were closed by Company with one of the following explanations. (The (blank) explanation, which comprised more than seventy-five percent of all "Closed with Explanation" responses, was used when "Company" chose not to share explanation for closure with the public.) 
Company Responses Sent to CFPB and Consumers, but not Shared Publicly.
Response to Complaint     |       Year 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Total Percent
Company believes complaint caused principally by actions of third party outside the control or direction of the company 0 0 0 3 1179 1042 171 2395 0.32%
Company believes complaint is the result of an isolated error 0 0 0 2 730 1240 184 2156 0.29%
Company believes complaint relates to a discontinued policy or procedure 0 0 0 0 22 16 2 40 0.01%
Company believes complaint represents an opportunity for improvement to better serve consumers 0 0 0 0 371 507 101 979 0.13%
Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law 0 0 2 41 11459 16458 3669 31629 4.25%
Company believes the complaint is the result of a misunderstanding 0 0 1 1 988 1514 329 2833 0.38%
Company can't verify or dispute the facts in the complaint 0 0 1 4 866 512 88 1471 0.20%
Company chooses not to provide a public response 0 0 3 67 45011 7395 52476 7.06%
Company disputes the facts presented in the complaint 0 0 0 2 1072 1257 296 2627 0.35%
Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response 0 0 0 10 24 69600 14553 84187 11.32%
Blank - (No Company Response in CFPB Complaint Database.) 2540 72402 108219 152957 106869 91996 27651 562634 75.68%
Grand Total 2540 72402 108226 153087 168591 191537 47044 743427
Annual Percentages 0.3% 9.7% 14.6% 20.6% 22.7% 25.8% 6.3% 100.0%
Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database //www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaint
Astonishingly, more than ninety-four percent of all responses sent to CFPB and consumers who submitted complaint, are either blank (75.68%), or Company and/or CFPB chooses not to share its responses with the public (18.38%). However, some Companies such as JPMorgan Chase and Company has chosen not to share any of its responses to consumers with the public.
 
©This website was developed as an information source for 'American Consumers', and is not affiliated with CFPB or any other government agency. The primary source of the 'public-interest information' in this website, is public domain information contained in the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database located at: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints. This public domain Information is being presented AS-IS, without warranty. Protecting the privacy and confidentiality of the consumer information on this site was one of the overriding-tenants of the site developers, and no information contained on this site should be modified or altered in any way without written consent of the website owners. Please direct all questions and comments to cfpbcomplaintmonitor.org.