The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced it would stop publicizing unverified complaint narratives and visualizations.
The CFPB said publication of unverified narratives and associated data visualizations in its Consumer Complaint Database is entirely discretionary. After years of experience, the agency said the utility of the publication is minimal and can cause confusion or provide misleading data. The complaint narrative provides negative consumer experiences and presents only one side of the story, the agency said. Additionally, the unverified allegations do not always describe violations of law.
“Publishing such narratives in the Database provides a less-than-representative sample of one-sided experiences that cannot provide consumers with a balanced and accurate view of companies’ compliance with their legal obligations,” the agency said in a statement. “Publishing narratives and visualizations given these deficiencies risks confusing and misleading consumers, who should otherwise be able to rely on the Bureau for authoritative information as they choose the products and services that meet their individual needs. It also needlessly harms companies’ reputations.”
To more closely align with the agency’s operations within its statutory authority, and to mitigate risks to consumers and companies, the CFPB said it will cease publication of consumers’ complaint narratives and visualizations in the database, but that the previously published narratives will be considered in the public domain for Freedom of Information Act purposes. Like the Federal Trade Commission, the CFPB said it would be placing the narratives in the CFPB’s FOIA Reading Room.
The CFPB said it remains committed to meeting its statutory obligations and will continue to collect, monitor and respond to consumers’ complaints, to systematically review and assess how well companies are providing complete, accurate and timely responses, to share consumer complaint information, and to disclose certain data in response to FOIA requests.