New Consumer Bureau to Roll Out Integrated Complaint System

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be handling consumer complaints when it officially opens this summer, and bureaucrats are feverishly working to bring a new integrated complaint handling system online by that time, reports The Washington Post Wednesday.

Using current Federal Trade Commission complaint system standards as a baseline, the CFPB complaint system will be much broader in scope, attempting to consolidate the complaints of the FTC and six other federal agencies that field inquiries from consumers about financial products.

Consumer complaints about debt collection were used as a specific example in the article.

Although the system will be gradually rolled out once the CFPB is fully operational on July 21, the agency has already been working the five largest credit card issuers in the U.S. to test its operation. Because the new system will be feeding all consumer complaints directly to target companies, a CFPB official told The Post that some banks may need a team of employees to handle the volume.

The system is currently not live for consumers, but the CFPB has set up an information page for consumers that have complaints right now at http://www.consumerfinance.gov/get-help-now/consumer-questions-and-complaints/.