CFPB Debuts Slightly Clunky Portal for Debt Settlement Complaints

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced Monday that it will accept consumer complaints about additional non-bank products such as debt settlement services. The CFPB has been receiving consumer complaints about debt collection since November 2013.

It’s not as easy to submit a complaint about a debt settlement service, or any other non-bank service, as it is to submit a complaint about a debt collector. On the CFPB’s complaints website, “debt collection” is a clearly visible category. But in order to submit a complaint about one of these newly categorized non-bank products, consumers have to select the generic “other financial service” tab. Once the consumer selects debt settlement from a new menu of choices, (s)he receives a prompt making sure that the complaint isn’t actually about a debt collector. This type of step-by-step confirmation doesn’t exist when a consumer files a complaint against a debt collector.

Once consumers confirm that their complaint is about a debt settlement service, they can submit a specific complaint about:

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