CFPB's Monthly Report Focuses on Student Loan Products

The CFPB’s most recent monthly report on consumer complaints spotlights student loans. The report is a high level snapshot of trends in consumer complaints. The Report provides a summary of the volume of complaints by product category, by company and by state.

 

Complaint Volume by Product

• The three most complained of consumer products remain debt collection, credit reporting and mortgage.
• Student loans continue to reflect the highest increase in change from last year– a 325% increase when comparing January-March 2017 to the same period in 2016. The CFPB attributes this increase to the updating of its student loan intake form to include complaints after Federal student loan servicing in late February 2016, as well as an enforcement action initiated by the CFPB against Navient in January 2017.
• Student loan complaints showed the greatest month to month decrease after spiking in January 2017 after what appears to be a response to the Bureau’s enforcement action against Navient.

Highlighted Product: Student Loans

 

The Report’s spotlighted consumer product, student loans, reflects that the majority of student loan complaints arise from non-federal student loans.  Interestingly, however, the majority of complaints described arise from federal student loans. 

• With respect to federal loans, consumers complain about difficulty with receiving information regarding alternative payment plans and particularly, the failure of servicers to provide more beneficial payment repayment options like income-driven repayment plans. 
• Consumers with nonfederal consumer loans complained most about the misapplication of payments and inaccurate accounting of payments.
• Consumers in general also complained about credit reporting inaccuracies.