The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) made its database of complaints against mortgage issuers, student loan firms, credit bureaus and other kinds of lenders available to the public for the first time on Thursday. 

The database covers 90,000 complaints with more than 1 million data points covering 450 companies.

The CFPB spreadsheet allows consumers to find the most complained-about banks in highly specific categories. For example, Capital One received the most complaints about credit cards, and Bank of America received the most complaints about traditional adjustable-rate mortgages.

It's important to note that the data isn't normalized and that banks with more customers receive more complaints.

Data can be sorted at the bureau's website by state or company. It can also be downloaded for free and used in privately developed applications. 

The agency's complaint database was released on a limited scale last year, and included only 19,000 credit card-related complaints. Thursday's announcement represents a large expansion of publicly available data. 

The bureau hopes consumers can use the information to make more informed choices about banks they do business with. "By sharing these complaints with the public, we are creating greater transparency in consumer financial products and services,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “The database is good for consumers and it is also good for honest businesses."

Complaints are listed in the CFPB database only after the company responds to the complaint or after they have had the complaint for 15 days. Records include the type of complaint, the consumer's ZIP code, the company, and the resolution. Consumers' names and other personal information are not shared.

Among student loans and mortgages, about two-thirds of the complaints involve consumers who are having trouble repaying their loans, according to an analysis provided by the CFPB of complaints filed through February. Many of the mortgage complaints reflect consumers' paperwork-related frustrations when attempting loan modifications. 

Nearly three-quarters of the 6,700 complaints filed against credit bureaus involve inaccurate information. Credit card complaints are more scattered, with billing disputes making up 15 percent. A common gripe, the bureau says: Consumers don't realize they have to dispute a suspicious item on their credit card bills within 60 days.

In a blog post that accompanied the release of the data, CFPB official Scott Pluta said he hoped consumers would be creative and find new ways to examine and use the data.

"From infographics to iPhone apps, we’ve seen people do amazing things with the credit card complaint data that was available before today," Pluta said. "We encourage the public, including consumers, analysts, data scientists, civic hackers and companies that serve consumers, to analyze, augment, and build on the information in the database to develop ways for consumers to use the complaint data or mash it up with other public data sets to reveal potential trends."

The bureau plans to expand the data to other complaint categories in the future, he added.

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Helaine Olen has begun an important discussion in the world of money: Is anybody's advice worth paying for?

The author's new book, “Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry,” has rattled quite a few cages since it was published in January. It's also gotten a lot of attention, including glowing praise from The Economist. We sat down with Olen at our studio in 30 Rockefeller Plaza recently. (You can watch the interview by clicking “play” above.)

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Olen points out the folly of simplistic mass-market advice, such as the notion that forgoing a latte every day will make one a millionaire by retirement. She's an equal-opportunity critic, poking fun at everyone from late-night TV stock pickers, to financial gurus who make millions writing books, to newspaper business reporters who have no credentials for doling out advice.

In fact, that's how Olen started her career -- writing "Money Makeover" columns for the Los Angeles Times, where she matched up eager consumers with even more eager finance wizards, and described the advice that was doled out. Ten years on, these stories still gnawed at Olen, as she wondered if the consumers were genuinely helped by the advice. Her book's most telling moments detail meetings with these sympathetic characters, who unsurprisingly have not fared better after hearing the normally high-priced money wisdom.

Olen gets some cheap laughs by going back in time and showing mistakes made by financial prognosticators -- citing Suze Orman's advice to her fans that real estate was the best investment. But something more nefarious is at play in American culture, Olen says, when the myth of the latte millionaire persists. The subtle message from many financial gurus is that consumers simply have to suck it up a little, ditch the extravagances and everything will be fine. That's just not true, she argues.

"We believe very deeply in this country in the myth of Horatio Alger, which is ... this idea that we can do it all by ourselves," she said. "And that's just not true." Harsh economic realities, such as skyrocketing housing and health care costs, play a bigger role in our financial future than our ability to skip pricey coffee, Olen says.

It's undeniable that much personal finance advice is overly simplistic. But it's also undeniable that Americans are terrible at math, and many don't want to take even the simplest steps at improving their financial futures. So it may not be fair to criticize those who give simple advice to consumers who seem to want it. And behavioral economists have produced research for years showing that financial education doesn't do much good anyway, because people tend to take the path of least resistance when making decisions on 401(k)s, mortgages and so on. They prefer nudges from companies and governments, such as automated enrollment in the most beneficial retirement plans. 

What's the harm if financial gurus provide that nudge of inspiration to pay down debt or build up savings for someone who otherwise might not act? Olen didn't have a good answer. Still, her critique is eye-opening, particularly when readers are confronted with tale after tale of advice gone bad. 

Taken as a whole, “Pound Foolish” is a good reminder that you are as qualified as anyone else to control your financial future. As the saying goes, if you want something done right, you should do it yourself. You'll be saving a lot of money in the process, too.

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