www.consumerfinance.govClick to enlarge

The new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is officially open for business … and is taking your complaints about credit cards.

The bureau’s Web site offers an easy-to-navigate feature to file your complaints. To do so, you enter your name and contact information and describe the problem, both in your own words and by using simple pull-down menus. The menus, for instance, help you explain the nature of your complaint — late fees, billing disputes, interest rate, etc. — and what, if anything, you’ve done so far to resolve it.

There’s also a space for you to outline what you’d like to see as a resolution. The site says the agency forwards your complaint to the credit card company.

If you have trouble with the form, or if questions arise as you go, the site includes an online chat feature so you can seek help from bureau staff, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. E.S.T. I spent about 10 minutes chatting this morning with a helpful cyberassistant with the somewhat robotic moniker of Customer Response #412757. (I used my name but didn’t identify myself as a reporter.)

I asked, for instance, whether I am required to enter my credit card number to file a complaint, as the site requests. He or she — let’s use  “C.R.” for short — explained that you don’t have to enter your number, but if you don’t, the agency can’t thoroughly investigate your complaint. If you submit the complaint without a number, you’ll most likely get a letter stating that you have to provide more information for the complaint to be processed. The Web site is secure, C.R. typed, so “providing the credit card number on the online form is really the most expedient way of completing your complaint and moving forward.”

Once the complaint is submitted, CR said, an investigator will contact you within 10 business days by e-mail or phone, depending on what contact information you provide on the form, to follow up and explain the next steps in the process.

Once you submit the complaint, the site issues you a tracking number, so you can log on later and check on its status.

C.R. signed off with a pleasant, “Have a great day.”

Bucks would like to hear from you about how the complaint process goes for you; please let us know what happens if you file one.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=2781ddbd23d7aba8a138e63fd926d7d0