Agency posts thousands of complaints against banks, others

Source: AP-Excite

By JEFF HORWITZ and KEN SWEET

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released thousands of complaints Thursday from disgruntled customers of banks, credit card companies and other providers of financial services.

The bureau posted a database of the grievances on its website over vehement protests from the financial industry. The database contains 7,700 complaints filed online by people who agreed to air their complaints publicly.

The CFPB offers a disclaimer that it does not investigate the substance of the complaints before posting them. Some postings come with spelling errors, some with gratuitous capitalization of words. The Bureau hopes the compilation of the grievances will point both it and the general public to the personal financial trouble spots of the day.

The targets of the complaints vary widely, and include small debt collection companies as well as Wall Street giants. Among the complaints: U.S. Bank supposedly gave a Wisconsin parent's young son a credit card with a $4,500 limit that he didn't request, and a California couple reported finally catching up on mortgage payments to M&T bank, only to be told they were still a month in arrears.

FULL story at link.



FILE - In this Sept. 12, 2013 file photo, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. The CFPB on Thursday, June 25, 2015 is releasing the first batch of its highly awaited database of consumer complaints filed against local banks, credit card and mortgage companies. The 7,700 public narratives, collected starting in March 2015, are only a fraction of the 627,000 complaints the bureau has fielded since its inauguration in 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150625/us--bank_complaint_database-9478fcbf44.html