Connecticut ranks seventh in the nation when it comes to per capita complaints about credit card bills, says a new report by ConnPIRG, a consumer advocacy group.
Citibank is the lending institution most often cited in complaints from Connecticut cardholders, ConnPIRG said. But nationally, Capital One was the most complained-about credit card issuer by total number of complaints, followed by Citibank, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.
Citigroup, Citibank’s parent company, did not have an immediate response.
The information about complaints came from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) public Consumer Complaints Database that was established by the Dodd-Frank financial reform act.
“The CFPB is empowering consumers to demand accountability from their credit card companies,” said Abe Scarr, ConnPIRG Education Fund director. “Finally, consumers ripped off by junky credit card add-ons or unfair billing disputes have somewhere to turn.”
Only residents of the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Florida had more complaints per capita than Connecticut.
According to ConnPIRG, consumers were more likely to complain about billing disputes (16 percent of complaints), followed by difficulties with APR or interest rates (10 percent) and trouble with identity theft, fraud and embezzlement (7 percent).