CFPB’s publication of narratives is a bad idea
by. Henry Meier
Those wacky kids at the CFPB are out it again. This time they want to go Wiki leaks with consumer complaints. They are proposing that the CFPB’s consumer complaint database be expanded to include consumer narratives of complaints consumers agree to publicize. The allegedly offending company would be given the option of responding with its own competing narrative. According to the CFPB, publishing narratives would “be impactful by making the complaint data personal (the powerful first person voice of the consumer talking about their experience), local (the ability for local stakeholders to highlight consumer experiences in their community), and empowering (by encouraging similarly situated consumers to speak up and be heard)” Let Freedom Ring!
Cut through the hyperbole and what you are left with is a debate about the value of empowerment of which I am proudly on the losing side. Amazon just celebrated its twentieth anniversary and, in addition to providing us books and consumer goods with great service at a lower price, it gave us the consumer narrative review. I have never used one of the narratives to buy anything of value. Given the choice I will look at Consumer Reports before I buy a TV or read a book review written by an expert when deciding what to read next. To me these are more reliable than on someone so enamored or annoyed about a product or service that they actually took the time to sit down and write a review. The internet indeed can “empower” anyone to think they are an expert but that doesn’t make them one..
But I am a dinosaur . More and more people are as likely to get their news from Facebook as from the New York Times. The whole idea of an information hierarchy is viewed with suspicion. What is the big deal they say? After all if someone doesn’t find an internet review-or an association blog for that matter -credible than they can just ignore it. They can just ignore a complaint they find on the CFPB’s website.
The problem is that the mere fact the complaint is on a government database is going to be giving complaints much more credence than they deserve. I was against the CFPB granting public access to its credit card complaint data base because I believe that the CFPB has an obligation to investigate complaints before throwing them out to the general public. Unsubstantiated allegations can do a lot more harm than good. A Government website isn’t a free market place of ideas. Unlike those reviews on Amazon it has the government’s imprimatur.
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