The CFPB proves it takes agency to complain
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has released its database of complaints against credit card companies, and “well-to-do neighborhoods of Florida and New York that are supplying the most grievances”:
Of the top four zip codes contributing to the 18,539 complaints published as of March 18, two are on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and two in south Florida – Boca Raton and Palm Beach Gardens. Almost 60 percent of complaints originated in zip codes where the median household income is higher than the national median of $52,762, according to the analysis.
This is amusing, but also instructive. To end up in the CFPB’s credit card complaint database, you must fit a fairly narrow set of criteria, from having a credit card, to knowing when you’ve been had, to caolling yur credit card company, all the way to knowing the CFPB exists and how to register your complaint. And of course, a certain sense of justified indignation.
Each one of these steps requires a specific level of financial understanding, bureaucratic knowledge, social literacy, and disposable time. And, of course, you have to belive that your grievances can be righted through bureaucratic channels, and that public institutions are responsive and responsible. All of which requires a very specific type of personal agency, and explains why complaining about your credit card company is actually rare behavior. – Ben Walsh