We’re joining the Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA), Defense (DoD), and Education (ED) to better protect servicemembers, veterans, and their family members who are attending college. We’ve signed an agreement to carry out a comprehensive strategy to strengthen our enforcement and compliance work.
This new agreement is part of a larger effort to prevent abusive and deceptive recruiting practices by schools serving servicemembers, veterans, spouses and other family members. This includes working to ensure that these servicemembers and others have the right information to make informed choices with their education benefits and that colleges are providing these students high-quality academic and student support.
Our agreement requires the agencies to:
- Have a point of contact for sharing information
- Share complaints about schools
- Alert each other of suspected fraud, deception, or misleading practices; and/or
- Notify each other of any agency action that could lead to a college’s loss of eligibility, a suspension of enrollment, or a termination of license
Before this agreement, an agency could have been looking into a particular school or even taking away the school’s eligibility for federal funds without the other agencies knowing about it. Now, we have a system for sharing important information and coordinating efforts.
Recently, we also worked with VA, DoD, and ED to launch an online student complaint system. Here, students can report negative experiences at schools and training programs. The complaints are forwarded to schools and also shared with other law enforcement agencies. The student complaint system has already received over two thousand complaints.
We look forward to even more successful work together in the future.
Continue Reading
Today, we’re releasing our third Snapshot of Complaints Received from Servicemembers, Veterans and their Families. The report details the data and trends from consumer complaints we’ve received from members of the military community since July 2011.
Here are just a few highlights:
- Debt collection complaints have continued to rise since our last report, and now make up 39 percent of total complaints. It is our largest category of complaints from the military community.
- Credit reporting remains a top category of concern. 72 percent of these complaints are about incorrect information on credit reports. This remains a significant issue for the military community, one that we highlighted earlier this year.
- Student loans are another concern. 49 percent of these complaints are about problems dealing with a lender or servicer. In these complaints, we continue to see long-standing trends, such as servicemembers complaining about not being provided their Servicemembers Civil Relief Act rights.
This year our report also highlights our outreach efforts that allowed us to connect with thousands of members of the military community, as well as three of our enforcement actions that recovered millions of dollars for affected consumers, primarily servicemembers, veterans, and their families. These figures represent the positive impact of the work we continue to do on behalf of those who serve.
Problems with account services
Basic account servicing stands out as a significant area of concern for servicemembers. Most consumers can call their financial institution, visit a branch, or connect online to try and get the help they need to maintain their account. Unfortunately, for military personnel and their families, the realities of military life, including deployments, frequent moves, and a high operational tempo, can sometimes make access to those services extremely challenging.
We found that servicemembers were often subject to a variety of account maintenance or penalty fees, as well as account-access restrictions, which were triggered due to aspects of their military service.
These problems raise concerns that financial institutions may not have a true understanding of the servicing needs of their military customers and may lack proper procedures and protections for them. Detailed examples of servicemember experiences can be found in Section II of the report.
Check out the snapshot to learn more.
We’re listening
As always, if you have a problem with a consumer financial product that you can’t resolve on your own; or if you know someone in that situation, please remember that you can submit a complaint online or by calling (855) 411-2372. We make your voice heard.
