The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently released a report about complaints that it receives from consumers. The CFPB is a consumer protection agency that focuses on consumer financial issues, like debt collection, mortgages, pay day lending, and auto loans. Interestingly, the CFPB found that complaints rose significantly from consumers in Colorado, Wyoming and Alaska. The increases were over 20% for each state. Many of the readers of this blog reside in these states, and I am licensed in all three of these states.

The CFPB also noted that the most complained about companies were the three major credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion). The report noted that: "Complaints about the use of consumer and credit reporting data for account screening are increasingly common. Consumers frequently mention learning of a furnisher's past negative reporting to both specialty checking account reporting and national credit reporting companies when they attempt to open a new bank account. Consumers also express concern over the difficulty that they have addressing potential errors on their reports."

During the period covered by the report, there were 2,611 complaints about credit reporting companies made by Coloradans, 176 complaints by Wyomingites and 180 complaints by Alaskans. This is much larger than I realized. I handle some of these complaints and have heard many stories about these types of problems, but had no idea that the problem was this large. Consumers facing problems with credit reporting agencies and furnishers may have recourse under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and if the furnisher is a debt collection agency, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Both acts provide for the recovery of attorneys fees and costs, so Harmony Law can handle some of these cases on a contingency basis. If you are facing issues with errors on your credit report, please feel free to contact Harmony Law. We may be able to help.