CFPB’s Consumer Complaint Database Could Go Away

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau consumer complaint database, which proponents say has the biggest impact on helping American consumers, could go away under President Trump’s White House, which is aiming to dismantle a lot of the regulation put in place by former President Obama.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the database, which the banks hate, is a big target for the Trump administration, which, in addition to vowing to overhaul Obama’s financial regulations, also wants to overhaul how the CFPB tackles the policing of the financial industry. The report noted that the complaint database gives consumers an easy way to hold companies to task, make a claim to get restitution and keep authorities abreast of potential wrongdoing by financial companies.

While advocates of the database say it goes a long way in protecting consumers, banks argue the database is full of complaints that aren’t verified and provide an inaccurate picture of how the banks deal with their customers. The banks have been asking the CFPB to stop publishing complaint data and criticisms of their products and conduct by consumers. “Instead of fostering informed and responsible consumer choice, the bureau has become a purveyor of at best unverified, and potentially false, information,” the Consumer Bankers Association and American Bankers Association wrote in September in a joint letter to the consumer bureau, reported Bloomberg.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its monthly complaint snapshot on Wednesday (Feb. 8) in which it said consumers continued to complain about mortgage servicers. As of the first of Jan. 2017, the CFPB said it handled around 1.1 million consumer complaints across all financial products around the country.

“Today’s snapshot shows that consumers continue to report running into issues when making payments on their mortgages or when trying to overcome obstacles to keep themselves in their homes,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a press release announcing the snapshot. “The bureau will continue to work to ensure that mortgage servicers give consumers the timely and effective assistance they deserve.”