The CFPB has issued its February 2016 complaint report which highlights complaints about prepaid cards and complaints from consumers in Texas and the Houston metro area.  The CFPB began taking complaints about prepaid cards in July 2014.

General findings include the following:

  • As of February 1, 2016, the CFPB handled approximately 811,700 complaints nationally, including approximately 21,800 complaints in January 2016.  For January 2016, debt collection continued to be the most complained-about financial product or service, representing about 31 percent of complaints submitted.  Debt collection complaints, together with complaints about credit reporting and mortgages, collectively represented about 67 percent of the complaints submitted in January 2016.
  • Complaints about “other financial services” showed the greatest percentage increase based on a three-month average, increasing about 77 percent from the same time last year (November 2014 to January  2015 compared with November 2015 to January 2016).  This category includes complaints about debt settlement, check cashing, credit repair, refund anticipation checks, and money orders.  Complaints during those periods increased from 100 complaints in 2014/2015 to 178 complaints in 2015/2016.
  • Payday loan complaints showed the greatest percentage decrease based on a three-month average, decreasing about 12 percent from the same time last year (November 2014 to January 2015 compared with November 2015 to January 2016).  Complaints during those periods decreased from 467 complaints in 2014/2015 to 409 complaints in 2015/2016.
  • Arizona, Delaware, and North Carolina experienced the greatest complaint volume increases from the same time last year (November 2014 to January 2015 compared with November 2015 to January 2016).  The volume of complaints from Arizona, Delaware, and North Carolina increased by, respectively, 33, 28, and 27 percent.
  • Hawaii, the District of Columbia, and South Dakota experienced the greatest complaint volume decreases from the same time last year (November 2014 to January 2015 compared with November 2015 to January 2016) with decreases of, respectively, 15, 13, and 10 percent.

Findings regarding prepaid card complaints include the following:

  • The CFPB has handled approximately 4,300 prepaid card complaints, representing about 0.5 percent of total complaints.
  • The most common issues identified by consumers involved managing, opening, or closing an account (such as inability to access funds and companies declining to reissue cards with balances remaining on expired cards) and unauthorized transactions or other transaction issues (such as unauthorized withdrawals occurring shortly after card activation or an initial transaction and freezing of balances after disputing a charge).

Findings regarding complaints from consumers in Texas and the Houston metro area include the following:

  • As of February  1, 2016, approximately 63,200 complaints were submitted by Texas consumers of which approximately 15,700 were from consumers in the Houston metro area.
  • Debt collection was the most-complained-about product, representing  33 percent of the complaints submitted by Texas consumers and 36 percent of the complaints submitted by consumers in the Houston metro area.  (Nationally, debt collection complaints averaged 26 percent of all complaints received by the CFPB.)
  • Credit reporting and mortgages were, respectively, the second and third most-complained-about financial products by Texas and Houston metro area consumers.  The percentage of credit reporting complaints submitted by Houston and Texas consumers exceeded the national average while the percentage of mortgage complaints submitted by such consumers was lower than the national average.