Coloradans filed almost 18,000 consumer complaints in 2022, according to data released by the state attorney general’s office, which represents a 28% increase from the year before.
Attorney General Phil Weiser’s office unveiled the top 10 consumer complaint categories this week to recognize Consumer Protection Week.
You can see the list of the most common consumer complaints in the interactive embedded below, and see the top categories by county by going here.
The top 10 list looks like this:
- Retail sales (1,676 complaints)
- Home services and repair (958 complaints)
- Professional services (919 complaints)
- Automotive sales and service (826 complaints)
- Government agencies (734 complaints)
- Lending companies (542 complaints)
- Real estate sales and services (535 complaints)
- Imposter scams/business impersonations (523 complaints)
- Debt collection (516 complaints)
- Health care and medical services (485 complaints)
Weiser said the No. 1 issue his office saw last year was consumers being billed for things they shouldn’t be.
“It's hard to be a consumer right now,” he told Denver7, “because so many companies will leave it to you to check whether you're being billed correctly or not. And when you're being billed incorrectly, deceptively, or for something you didn't know that you are buying, let us know about it.”
In 2021, Colorado passed HB21-1239, which aims to protect consumers from unauthorized auto renewal billing, among other protections. Weiser said his office is also working on a consumer mediation program that can go to bat for consumers affected by unauthorized billing.
Retail sales – those that “involve complaints relating to unauthorized memberships or subscriptions, service and delivery issues, and cancellation and termination issues” – topped the list in 2021 as well, with Coloradans filing 1,266 such complaints.
Home services and repairs, debt collection, health care and real estate sales were also on the top-10 list from 2021.
Government agencies landed in the top five most complaints in 2022 after not making the list in 2021. Unemployment claims were the second-most common in 2021 as Colorado and the nation continued recovery from a disruption to the labor market brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, but didn’t make the list in 2022.
The latest data shows consumer complaints continue to rise in Colorado. The total in 2021 was up 15% from 2020.