Pub. 8 2018-2019 Issue 3

12 O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S - H E L P I N G C O L O R A D A N S R E A L I Z E D R E A M S T he Bureau of Consumer Financial Protec- tion (CFPB) routinely publishes reports breaking down complaints it receives. In a report published May 31, 2018 entitled, “Complaint Snapshot: Debt Collection (the Re- port), the CFPB discussed the average number of complaints received from January 1, 2018 through March 31, 2018, and compared those numbers to the same time period in 2017. The Report provided an overview of complaints the CFPB receives, as well as an additional section focusing on complaints regarding debt collection practices. An interesting trend was the significant increase in the number of complaints in the areas of “Money transfers or service, virtual currency” and “Credit or consumer reporting,” which have more than doubled in the past year. The categories with the most complaints— representing approximately 74% of the total complaints in March 2018—were: “Credit or consumer reporting,” “Debt collection,” and “Mortgage.” “Credit or consumer reporting” complaints made up approximately 37%, “Debt collection” complaints made up approximately 27% and “Mortgage” made up approximately Reviewing the CFPB’s Recent Complaint Report FEATURE ARTICLE BY ZACK SMITH, ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL In a comparison between the first quarters of 2017 and 2018, the “Money transfers or service, virtual currency” complaint- category increased by 184%—from an average of 352 complaints to 1,000 complaints.