REFinBlog

Editor: David Reiss
Cornell Law School

April 2, 2013

Reiss on CFPB Complaint Database

By David Reiss

E-Commerce.com has a story on this tempest in a teapot, Finance Companies Bristle at Public Airing of Consumer Complaints.  It reads in part as follows:

The angst of the finance industry isn’t universal, however.

This database is evolutionary — not revolutionary — in that it expands what has been done with credit card companies, noted David Reiss, a professor of law at Brooklyn Law School.

“As a general rule, regulators should favor disclosure, which is integral to most consumer protection regimes,” he told CRM Buyer. “Banks and financial institutions have focused on the way that the database can be used inappropriately — allowing, for instance, adversaries to build an unverified record of wrongdoing by financial institutions.”

There is no evidence that this has occurred so far, Reiss said — and if it does occur, it can be addressed.

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