The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection (DATCP) receives tens of thousands of requests for assistance, information, and resources each year. In 2022, the DATCP worked to resolve more than 11,000 consumer complaints.
Their Executive Policy Initiatives Director Michelle Reinen appeared on the WCUB Breakfast Club recently with a rundown of the top ten consumer complaints in 2022. Many of the usual suspects fell into the top five such as landlord/tenant issues involving things like security deposit returns, evictions, and unauthorized entry. Moving down the top five were telemarketing calls and texts, home improvement, and telecommunications problems including billing disputes and failure to cancel services upon request. Identity theft rounded out the top five.
New to the top ten last year were issues with Health and medical devices/products. Here Reinen explains the rise of complaints in this category: “There was one company that was really driving this that through supply chain shortages had really failed to deliver to consumers. So we want to make sure to continue to monitor this, but we think it’s being corrected at this point.”
Also new to the top ten is the category of furniture/home furnishings; Reinen said, “We saw some businesses failing to deliver and honor contracts that they had in place, failing to produce the product and some of that again is because they couldn’t get supplies and others with staffing so they made representations that couldn’t be honored.”
The complete top ten list of consumer complaints for 2022 can be viewed at DATCP.wi.gov or call the consumer protection hotline at 1-800-422-7128.
