Consumer bureau inundated with complaints, chalking up high success rate

[ProSense]

Consumer bureau inundated with complaints, chalking up high success rate

by Joan McCarter

Senate Republicans are continuing their all-out effort to kill the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They're also seemingly doing their damnedest to make themselves even more unpopular with the American public.

It turns out that the CFPB is going gangbusters, handling consumer complaints at a rate that must be giving the banks heartburn.

In the first six months of its existence, the CFPB fielded 13,210 complaints from consumers via its phone line and online submission forms, as well as referrals from other regulators, the report said. Of those complaints, 9,307 were tied to credit cards, with another 2,326 pertaining to mortgages. [...]

So far, a little over half of the complaints received have been settled between the company and the consumer "with relief." Another 30.6 percent have been settled without a mutually agreed upon remedy, while companies are still reviewing another 11.9 percent.

And that's with the agency not even operating at full strength with just about half its budgeted workforce, and a director who just started. (Read the story of one satisfied Kossack, mrsgoo, about her interaction with the CFPB.) No wonder the GOP wants to kill it.

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/31/1060373/-Consumer-bureau-inundated-with-complaints,-chalking-up-high-successrate-