Financial Services Complaint Data Now Public Record

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has launched the Consumer Complaint Database, a publicly available store of every financial services complaint lodged by a consumer since June 1, 2012.

The CFPB has been collecting consumer complaint data since July 2011, and in April published its first ever Consumer Response Annual Report. The new portal means data can be accessed at any time.

The version of the data center made available for download on Tuesday morning was slightly limited in scope, with just 137 complaints filed, all related to credit cards. But here are three juicy tidbits from that small sample, which should grow immensely over the next few months:

 Even two weeks’ worth of data is enough to name a goat: nearly 25 percent of all complaints filed thus far have been associated with products issued by Capital One. Citibank is the next most often-cited institution, with about 20 percent of the complaints.

 The most popular complaints: billing disputes, and issues with APR or interest rates. The CFPB’s new database has a cool visualization feature:

Source: ConsumerFinance.gov 

 There’s a map, too. As the CFPB collects more data, we should be able to see where the nation’s unhappiest financial services customers live.

Source: ConsumerFinance.gov

Access the up-to-date Consumer Complaint Database at the CFPB’s website.