Capital One. Citibank. JPMorgan Chase. Bank of America.

[Flying Squirrel]

According to this article, the nation’s new consumer protection agency is about to “start naming names, albeit in baby steps.” (Baby steps meaning that only the past 12 days’ worth of complaints are currently listed on the site, but it will eventually list a years’ worth or more.)

The article further states that “users can also generate charts showing which banks attract the most complaints… Anyone with access to the web will be able to review and analyze the information, and draw their own conclusions.”

Well, so the agency will be naming names, but it’s up to us to connect the dots. Fair enough, I suppose. I tried out the CFPB website today. I get 90 minutes of time at the library, and this was barely sufficient for me to do what the pervious paragraph said I’d be able to do. I wouldn’t expect the average consumer to want to spend anywhere near that amount of time on it; I certainly hope my ineptitude today will be the exception rather than the rule among consumers.

When the website’s tools initially weren’t doing the trick for me, I reverted to what I know best: I clicked on “All data” and imported the data into an Excel spreadsheet. This turned out to be quite a chore – there were 137 records, and I had to click each one individually, then cut and paste the information. This took 40 minutes. (I’d really like to see an option for downloading the data in the future – or did I just miss that option?) Once pasted, it would normally have been easily manageable, but the data was listed horizontally rather than vertically – so it used more than half the available columns, and had to be sorted by row rather than by column. What this means, for anyone not familiar with Excel, is that I would be unable to paste data for more than 256 records (without doing some serious time-consuming reorganization), so I would not be able to easily examine more than about three weeks’ worth of data using this method.

I’ll have to check out the site again next time I can and see if I’m wrong about the limitations of this website for the average consumer. For now, however, I’m happy to be able to report on a few things I was able to see based on this limited data set.

Two-thirds of complaints occurred in these eight categories (listed in order from most to least complaints):

Billing disputes; APR/interest; Closing/cancelling account; Credit card protection/debt protection; Late fee; Collection practices; Collection debt dispute; Customer service/customer relations.

Most complaints in each of the top three categories:

Billing disputes: Capital One, 27%; Bank of America, 12%; Citibank 12% of complaints.

APR/interest: JPMorgan Chase, 37%; Citibank, 32%; Discover, 16% of complaints.

Closing/cancelling account: Bank of America, 22%; JPMorgan Chase, 22% of complaints.

Finally, here are the leaders in complaints over all categories (including some categories not listed above) over the 12-day period covered:

Capital One, 24%; Citibank, 20%; JPMorgan Chase, 17%; Bank of America, 11% of complaints.

(Dis)honorable mention to the following:

GE Capital Retail, 7%; Discover, 6%; Wells Fargo, 5%; Amex and Barclays, 4% each.

I’m sorry to say I’ve had firsthand dealings with all of the top four. I no longer have a Bank of America account, and I have had a credit card from all three of the others; all three jacked my rates up, and when I lost my job (my career, really) I finally just gave up and defaulted on them all. I’ll never do business with any of them again. Oh yeah, I got a Wells Fargo account once too – I closed it as soon as I found out how long they were going to take to credit me with a deposit, even after the initial month.

End of story, for now at least. May the consumer beware.

[Honeycombe8]

1. I unfortunately have a BOA card, but only because they bought the bank I had my card with.

I don't use it. I'm surprised they still keep me on the card, since I haven't used it in years.

[tridim]

2. What do you mean by "defaulted" on your credit cards?

Is defaulting a legal process?

I have one old $800 dispute (90% of the balance is fees and penalties) that I don't plan to pay. It's on my credit report.

[Flying Squirrel]

3. That`s defaulting.

And mine will be on my credit report for years to come also.

[notadmblnd]

4. I don't know if it is still the process, but your credit record will disappear after 7 years

if left inactive.

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. I'm still waiting to hear a real justification for any thinking person to keep any money with

any of these leeches. Wherever you live in the U.S. has a local bank, has a credit union, and access to the internet.

And here's a little bonus; If one of these parasites has your account and also services your mortgage or has issued your credit card, and they decide that you owe them money (regardless of whether you do or not), they can and will simply take it.

And thanks to our corporate politicians, it's perfectly legal and the burden of proof is on you.

[Flying Squirrel]

6. Ignorance, mostly

Which is why the agency set up the website. I really do intend to check out the site again to see why I had such trouble and was not able to make it do what it`s supposed to. Then email them with suggestions on improving it.

[Flying Squirrel]

7. Just one more

kick in honor of the 2 hours I spent on this