CFPB releases online database on credit card complaints

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been accepting consumer complaints about credit cards for close to a year. Today, the agency made a database of those complaints available online.

You can see the names of the card issuers griped about, the gist of the complaint and company’s response and the consumer’s zip code.

The CFPB says it has received 16,840 credit card complaints, with the most common complaint involving billing disputes. The agency sent 84 percent of those complaints to the card issuers, while the rest went to other regulators or were incomplete. Card companies have responded to more than 9 out of 10 of the complaints they received.

The CFPB also reported that it forwarded about 16,250 mortgage complaints to companies, and mortgage lenders response to 86 percent of them. The agency added that lenders responded to 830 complaints about private student loans.

Consumer advocates applaud the release of the database:

"CFPB’s publicly available credit card database not only helps consumers make informed financial decisions, but it also allows the CPFB to detect patterns of unfair or abusive business practices that harm consumers,” said Ellen Taverna, National Association of Consumer Advocates' Senior Legislative Associate, in a prepared statement.