Complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed against debt collectors declined ten percent from July to August 2015, according to the latest debt collection litigation and complaint statistics report from WebRecon. There were 3,432 complaints in August – down from 3,812 in July. 834 different debt collectors were implicated by the complaints. According to WebRecon, the debt collection companies responded to 92% of the complaints in a timely manner.
The most frequent complaint was consumers' contention that they did not owe the debt that was being collected/reported. The top five issues in debt collection complaints were:
- Debt is not mine (28%);
- Debt has already been paid (12%);
- Not given enough information to verify debt (12%);
- Frequent or repeated calls to collect the debt (10%); and
- Attempted to collect wrong amount (6%).
While CFPB debt collection complaints decreased in the month of August, they are still up for the year. This significant volume of complaint activity underscores the ongoing need for careful compliance policies.
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