NARRATOR (00:00): Welcome to Module Four: How To Submit A Complaint Or Tell Your Story. This is the final module of the series, Helping Clients Explore Their Personal Finance Rights from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This presentation is being made by a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau representative on behalf of the Bureau. It does not constitute legal interpretation, guidance, or advice of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Any opinions or views stated by the presenter are the presenter's own and may not represent the Bureau's views. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a 21st century agency that implements and enforces Federal consumer financial law and ensures that markets for consumer financial products are fair, transparent, and competitive. CFPB FinEx is a place where financial educators, practitioners, counselors, researchers, and others can share information and best practices, learn from one another, advance their work, and see what CFPB is doing to help consumers. NARRATOR (01:10): Welcome to Module Four on How To Submit A Complaint Or Tell Your Story. This module is part of a series designed to help you as a practitioner partner with clients as they learn about their rights. In module four, we will learn about the CFPB complaint process for consumers who have a problem with a financial product or service and need a response from a company, the CFPB's Tell Your Story Tool for consumers who don't have a complaint but just want to tell the CFPB about an experience, good or bad, that they've had with money and financial services, partner with clients who want to submit complaints or tell their stories, and explore additional resources to help you in your work. DAVID (01:54): Hi, again. Last time Jane put a fraud alert on her credit report. She started to look more closely at her finances. Since we had spoken about personal finance rights, Jane decided she wanted to submit a complaint about a company calling her at all hours trying to collect the debt to get a direct response from the company about the problem. Let's look at important information from the CFPB about their complaint process and how I can help Jane throughout the process. NARRATOR (02:25): If someone is having a problem with certain financial products or services and needs a direct response from the company, they can consider submitting a complaint to the CFPB. Submitting a complaint helps the consumer. The CFPB helps consumers connect with financial companies to understand issues, fix errors, and get direct responses about problems. When a consumer submits a complaint, the Bureau works to get them a response. By coming to the CFPB, consumers aren't just helping themselves. Complaints a role in everything the Bureau does, helping the CFPB to identify problems and prioritize their work. DAVID (03:07): I can be sure to explain to clients about how submitting a complaint to the CFPB may help them and others. NARRATOR (03:15): Before a person submits a complaint, they can learn about how the CFPB complaint process works. They can try to reach out to the company. Companies can usually answer questions unique to the person's situation and more specific to the products and services the company offers. Sometimes a person isn't sure if they have a complaint. They can search Ask CFPB for hundreds of impartial answers to consumers' most frequently asked financial questions. To submit a new complaint to the CFPB online, a person must go to consumerfinance.gov/complaint/. They will need to provide the following information: facts about what happened, including important dates and amounts; documents to support the complaint; name of the company they are complaining about, and their email address and mailing address. They should make sure to include all the information they can because a person generally can't submit a second complaint about the same problem. NARRATOR (04:16): Now, let's take a look at how the complaint process works. There are five steps in the complaint process at the CFPB. One, a complaint is submitted. Two, the complaint is reviewed and routed. Three, the company responds to the complaint. Four, the complaint is published. Five, the consumer reviews the company's response. Let's explore each step. Step one, a person submits a complaint to the CFPB about an issue they have with a company related to a consumer financial product or service. A person that submits a complaint will receive email updates and can log in to track the status of their complaint. Step two, the CFPB forwards the complaint and any documents provided to the company and works to get a response from them. If another government agency is better able to assist, the CFPB forwards the complaint to them. NARRATOR (05:16): Step three, the company reviews the complaint and communicates with the person who submitted the complaint as needed. The company reports back about the steps taken or that will be taken on the issue in the complaint. Companies generally respond in 15 days. Step four, information about the complaint is published such as the subject and date of the complaint on the Public Consumer Complaint Database. With the person's consent, the description of what happened (after taking steps to remove personal information) is also published. Step five, the CFPB lets the consumer know when the company responds. Consumers are able to review the company's response and have 60 days to provide feedback about the company's response. NARRATOR (06:05): Knowledge check. Companies generally take 15 days to respond to a complaint. True or false? If you said true, you are correct. Companies typically take about 15 days to respond, even if it is just to ask for more time to look into the issue. DAVID (06:23): I'm going to share this information with clients. More on that later, but, first, let's learn about the CFPB's Tell Your Story Tool. A client, June, has been using a popular mobile phone app to help them budget and put aside savings regularly and automatically. June has not had a problem with the app and does not have a complaint, but would like to tell the CFPB about their experience using a financial services app to help budget and save. NARRATOR (06:52): Even if you do not have a complaint, the CFPB wants to hear your stories about your experiences with money and financial services. The CFPB wants to hear from consumers about their positive or negative experiences with financial products and services. First, someone submits their story to the CFPB in writing. Next, someone at the CFPB reads the consumer's story. The Bureau takes steps to protect personal information and a person's story is never shared with the public without permission. Unlike complaints, stories are not sent to companies for a response and are not published on the CFPB's Public Consumer Complaint Database on consumerfinance.gov. The more the CFPB hears from consumers, the more insight they gain into what's happening in the financial world and how it's affecting people. Stories help to inform the CFPB's work to protect consumers and create a fair marketplace. NARRATOR (07:55): Knowledge check. Consumers can use CFPB's Tell Your Story to share both positive and negative experiences with financial products and services. True or false? If you said true, you are correct. The Bureau wants to hear about positive or negative experiences with financial products and services. DAVID (08:18): That was a lot of great information. I am excited to partner with clients and share information about submitting complaints or telling their stories. Here's what I have planned. I am going to share information about the complaint process. I can let clients know about the five steps of the complaint process and when and why they should consider making a complaint. Share information about Tell Your Story. I'm going to encourage clients to share both positive and negative experiences and use Ask CFPB to help clients find the answers they need. Trusted information can help clients decide if they want to make a complaint and help clients have the information they need to reach their financial goals. NARRATOR (09:05): Don't forget, you can always access resources and learn more. On consumerfinance.gov, look for information you need to help clients explore their personal finance rights. Our slides featured a variety of resources. Use these links to visit sources. Thank you for joining us as we explored personal finance rights. This was the final module in the series. Visit consumerfinance.gov to explore additional resources and join the CFPB FinEx community. To continue to learn more, join the CFPB FinEx community. You'll receive updates by email and engage with a large network of practitioners. You can also access the LinkedIn discussion group for news, research, and best practices. Plus, stay up to date with webinars, regional meetings, and conferences all while meeting CFPB presenters who can work with your organization. Use the link to join today. 2