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/.
