The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Have you had problems with prepaid cards, gift cards, and/or general purpose reloadable cards? As young people become more involved in the financial world, these cards are one source of confusion that they will encounter. So who can you turn to when you have a problem like this?

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau provides consumers a new place to go if they have a complaint about any of these types of financial products or services. You may post your complaint on their Web site and receive a response on the site itself. This helps eliminate the problem of businesses hiding complaints in a file where the public can’t see them. (To protect your privacy, your personal information will not appear on the Web site.)

The CFPB is an agency of the U.S. government. It has a mission “to make markets for consumer financial products and services work for Americans — whether they are applying for a mortgage, choosing among credit cards, or using any number of other consumer financial products.”

Consumers can also now submit complaints about additional nonbank products, including credit repair services, pawn shops and payday loans. They even provide help in deciding how best to pay for college!

READERS, what do you think?

How could financial products and services be made easier for consumers to understand?

Would you be more comfortable getting a credit or debit card if the rules were spelled out in easy-to-understand language, rather than language that only a lawyer can understand?

Reference:

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (n.d.). [Home page]. http://www.consumerfinance.gov/.