The 10 companies Americans complained most about are debt collection companies, and they’re responsible for more than one-fifth of all complaints about debt collectors filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a report by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund.
Four of the top 10 – Encore Capital Group, Portfolio Recovery Associates, Citibank, and Transworld – have been cited by the bureau for deceptive or illegal debt collection activities.
The states with the most debt collection complaints per capita are Georgia, Delaware, Florida, Nevada, and Maryland. Washington, D.C., has more complaints per capita than any state.
The report is the 13th in an ongoing series based on analyses of the public database by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group.
For the report, U.S. PIRG Education Fund used the bureau’s public complaint database to rank the debt collectors American consumers complain about the most. Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the bureau, has said he’d like to restricting public access to the database.
“Our researchers could only gather this information with the help of the CFPB’s public complaint database, which helps consumers decide where to – and where not to – take their business,” said Ed Mierzwinski, senior director for U.S. PIRG Education Fund’s consumer program. “Unfortunately, the bureau’s Acting Director Mick Mulvaney has threatened to shut down the public database, which will only benefit corporate wrongdoers who want to hide their practices from the public.”
The bureau unveiled its latest irregularly-released Complaint “Snapshot” of debt collection complaints on May 31. However, the snapshot gave little information about debt collection complaints and none about specific companies, Mierzwinski said.
Attorneys generals also want to keep the bureau’s database open to the public. In a letter, 14 attorneys general urged the bureau to retain its public database of consumer complaints, emphasizing the benefits of a public database to state law enforcement, honest businesses, and the public.
The letter is in response to a March 1 request for information issued by the bureau, seeking comments from the public “to assist the Bureau in assessing potential changes that can be implemented to the bureau’s public reporting practices of consumer complaint information.”
“The CFPB public database represents an admirable commitment to transparency,” said New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood. “By moving to eliminate public access to the database, the Trump administration is yet again putting corporate interests over those of consumers, shielding corporate wrongdoing from public view.”
Since the complaint database became operational on June 19, 2012, more than 1 million consumers have filed complaints, and 97 percent of these consumers received a response from the company that was the subject of their complaint.
In its letter, the attorneys general point out that:
- The large number of complaints and functionality of the database – which allows users to narrow searches by company, state, and product – have enabled their offices to identify patterns of widespread misconduct that have led to investigations into debt collection companies, student loan servicers, for-profit universities, and other companies whose misconduct was initially brought to their attention through a critical mass of complaints filed with the bureau.
- The database arms consumers with information so they can make informed decisions and avoid fraudulent companies in the marketplace.
- The database benefits responsible companies because it allows them to better understand their customers, and provides them the opportunity to identify problems and take corrective action.
The attorneys general want the bureau to consider facts and arguments in favor of continuing the public database, especially since press reports indicating that Mulvaney may have already made up his mind to eliminate the database. In a recent speech to the American Bankers Association, he suggested that the decision to shut down the database was a foregone conclusion.
In addition to New York, the letter was signed by the attorneys general of California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington, as well as the Hawaii Office of Consumer Protection.
