The treatment consumers received at the hands of Frontier and other airlines last year generated more complaints to the state than even pesky robocalls and retail scams, according to a list of the top 10 consumer complaints released by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Monday.
The list, provided as part of National Consumer Protection Week, counted 662 complaints against airlines, 638 involving fraudulent or unwanted telephone calls, and 625 regarding questionable retail sales practices, which include unauthorized memberships or subscriptions, delivery problems and termination issues.
“2020 was not a usual year for consumers. Consumers are having to be more and more vigilant in so many ways,” Weiser said during a Zoom call.
Overall, the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division recorded 12,130 complaints and inquiries last year, a 23.5% increase from 2019. Many complaints had some tie to the COVID-19 outbreak, from peddlers of false cures to phone scammers trying to divert federal assistance to vendors that refused to refund tickets they couldn’t honor.
Take airlines. Consumers who tried to receive reimbursement for canceled flights found the process difficult and convoluted, with Frontier Airlines by far the worst offender, Weiser said. Consumers often had to spend hours trying to get through to understaffed call centers, only to receive a time-limited credit and not a refund.
Passengers had three months to use the credit, even as the pandemic continued to rage and travel remained difficult. If the credit value wasn’t used all in one booking, it couldn’t be rolled over to another flight or otherwise preserved.
“When people get a credit, we expect the credit to be usable,” said Weiser. After getting flooded with complaints, he requested a federal investigation into Denver’s hometown carrier last September.
Weiser said the complaints his office received last year helped alert the public about new problems that were popping up, many of which played off current trends. Other leading sources of complaints included debt collectors, government agencies, lenders, unsolicited emails, telecom providers and travel agencies.
A separate study from the CoPIRG Foundation found a 50%-plus jump in complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which records being set month-by-month last year.
The top complaint category, at 1,103, made by Colorado consumers to the federal database involved incorrect information on credit reports or other personal consumer reports. That was followed by 607 complaints regarding how credit reporting services investigated existing problems.
Nationally, Experian, TransUnion and Equifax were the top three sources of complaints last year. The CFPB didn’t push the firms to resolve consumer disputes in a timely manner, which resulted in lower credit scores and denials of credit, housing and employment, according to the report.
“We think this is a sign that there is a huge financial strain on consumers. There were too many traps in the marketplace,” said Danny Katz, executive director of the CoPIRG Foundation, who was part of Monday’s Zoom call.
Katz and Weiser said the massive number of fraudulent claims for unemployment insurance benefits revealed just how rampant identity theft has become. Consumers who aren’t seeking new credit should place a freeze on their accounts with all three credit reporting bureaus as a precaution and file their tax returns as soon as possible.
Problems with mortgage payments, attempts to collect debts not owed and issues with bank and savings accounts were also reported, but nowhere on the level that consumers faced with credit reporting agencies, which saw their complaints double in volume, according to the CoPIRG Foundation study.
"last" - Google News
March 02, 2021 at 08:00PM
https://ift.tt/3raWK6f
Frontier, other airlines generated more consumer complaints in Colorado last year than robocalls - The Denver Post
"last" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2rbmsh7
https://ift.tt/2Wq6qvt
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Frontier, other airlines generated more consumer complaints in Colorado last year than robocalls - The Denver Post"
Post a Comment