The CFPB’s October 2017 complaint report, which the CFPB calls a “special edition” monthly complaint report, departs from the format of the CFPB’s standard monthly reports.  (The CFPB’s June and July 2017 complaint reports were also called a “special edition.”)  Instead of analyzing monthly complaint trends and highlighting complaints received about a particular product and from consumers in a particular state and city, the new report provides data on servicemember complaints on a nationwide and state-by-state basis.  Entitled “50 state snapshot of Servicemember complaints,” the report is based on data as of October 1, 2017.

The report states that nationwide, the CFPB has handled 91,482 complaints from servicemembers, veterans, and their families since 2011, and that it handled 8% more servicemember complaints in 2016 than in 2015.  Companies provided timely responses to 97% of nationwide servicemember complaints.

The report shows the top five products that were the subject of the most complaints submitted by servicemembers and non-servicemembers on a nationwide and state-by-state basis.  For each state, the report also shows the percentage of servicemember complaints to which companies provided timely responses and the top issue reported by servicemembers for each of the top five products.  It also provides a percentage breakdown of servicemember complaints by branch of military service and a state map showing the volume of complaints submitted by geocoded zip codes.

The CFPB also published a blog post about the report that focuses on the differences between complaints submitted by servicemembers and non-servicemembers.  In the blog post, the CFPB notes the following “important national highlights”:

• Servicemembers are more likely to submit complaints about debt collection as compared to non-servicemembers (39 percent of all servicemember complaints are about debt collection, compared to 26 percent from non-servicemembers).

• Servicemembers are less likely to submit complaints than non-servicemembers about the other top four types of complaints (i.e. mortgages, credit reporting, credit cards, checking or savings accounts).