WASHINGTON, D.C. -

When the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its monthly consumer complaints snapshot report a little more than a week ago, one of the categories drumming up the most activity was credit reporting. Potential problems with how that metric developed is precisely what the Consumer Data Industry Association (CDIA) attempted to articulate to the CFPB in advance of that snapshot.

CDIA president and chief executive officer Stuart Pratt explained why the organization believes that the monthly complaint reports currently being published using the raw complaint data from the CFPB database “inaccurately reflects” the complaint volume and trends associated with its members, which includes Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Pratt articulated the reasons in a letter to CFPB director Richard Corday, including:

1. Allowing complaints where no dispute was previously submitted to CDIA members

2. Complaints misattributed to CDIA members

3. Complaints submitted by credit repair services not recognized

4. The importance of context

“In many instances, consumers will often misidentify the actual party about which they are complaining due to the multiple parties involved in the ecosystem of credit reporting (and other types of consumer reporting agencies), thus wrongly submitting a complaint against one of our members,” Pratt said.

“We respectfully request that the CFPB postpone the production of additional reports which include individual company data until the CFPB has completed its work through its published request for information focused on determining … best practices for normalizing’ the raw complaint data it makes available via the database so they are easier for the public to use and understand,” he continued.

“To continue to publish raw data at the company level is unfair and does not, to quote the CFPB’s own notice, ‘… provide consumers with timely and understandable information to help enable them to make responsible financial decisions and to enhance market efficiency and transparency,’” Pratt went on to say.

The bureau said it has handled approximately 105,000 credit reporting complaints since it began accepting them in October 2012. The CFPB reported that it saw a 56-percent increase in the number of credit reporting complaints submitted by consumers between June (4,289 complaints) and July (6,969 complaints).

In analyzing the period of May through July, officials noticed complaints increased by 45 percent compared to the prior year. 

The entire letter in which Pratt goes into much more details about the reasoning behind the CDIA’s four major concerns can be view here.