The airing of grievances: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posts thousands bank complaints

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is releasing thousands of complaints from disgruntled customers of banks, credit card companies and other providers of financial services.

The bureau posted a database of the complaints on its website Thursday over vehement protests from the financial industry. The database contains 7,700 complaints filed online by people who agreed to air their grievances publicly.

The database represents a small fraction of the 627,000 complaints the bureau has received in the four years it's been operating. The CFPB began offering the option of allowing people to publicly share their complaints in March.

The names of the companies being complained about are shown, but any personal information about the people filing the grievances have been removed.

The bureau says it hasn't vetted the substance of the complaints.