More than 11,300 written consumer complaints were sent to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection in 2024.
The resulting mediations, enforcement actions, and settlements returned over $23 million to Wisconsin consumers through refunds and restitutions directly returned to consumers, and civil forfeitures deposited into the state’s common school fund for the benefit of public education.
DATCP compiled a list of the top 10 complaints for the year. They are:
- Landlord-Tenant Issues: 2,525 complaints filed. The most common disputes between landlords and tenants reported to DATCP include failure to maintain the premises, security deposit returns, unauthorized entry, mold and infestation, inadequate disclosures, and unsatisfactory service. In addition, DATCP received 45 complaints about manufactured housing and manufactured housing community concerns.
- Telemarketing: 1,513 complaints. Issues include phishing and spoofing, imposter scams, robocalls, harassment, and Do Not Call Registry violations. While the complaints in this category have generally decreased over the last few years, that does not mean the calls themselves are decreasing. Instead, consumers are using tools like the Do Not Call Registry and anti-spam technologies built into the latest cell phones to reduce those calls.
- Home Improvement: 664 complaints filed. Top concerns include quality of work, delays in performance, failure to provide services and materials, failure to honor warranties, deceptive and misleading representations, and failure to disclose lien rights.
- Identity Theft: 618 complaints. The top issue in this category remains online account takeovers, with many of the complaints involving compromised Facebook accounts.
- Telecommunications: 527 complaints. Consumers reported issues about billing disputes, customer dissatisfaction, agreed-upon terms not being followed, deceptive and misleading representations, refund and adjustment policies, and denial of cancellation requests.
- Medical Services: 439 complaints. The top issue in this category was medical billing disputes. Other topics include unsatisfactory service and misleading representations.
- Motor Vehicle Repair: 341 complaints. Consumers reported issues such as unsatisfactory quality of work, damage and loss of property, failure to honor agreements or perform work, performance delays, and charges for work not permitted by the vehicle owner.
- Motor Vehicle Sales (New and Used): 297 complaints. The most common issues cited in these complaints were inadequate disclosures, prize notice mailers, and untrue, deceptive and misleading representations.
- Travel: 244 travel complaints. The travel category covers a variety of areas such as airlines, hotels and lodging, auto rentals, and travel service bundles, with common consumer complaints including billing disputes, refund and adjustment policies, failure to provide services, failure to return deposits, and unsatisfactory service.
- Motor Vehicle Accessories: 141 complaints. Refunds, failure to deliver products, and deceptive and misleading representations were the top issues reported by consumers.
Consumers filed many complaints in the categories of entertainment and recreation, warranties and extended warranties, major appliances, timeshares and timeshare resellers, furniture and home furnishings, and medical devices. Following some of these complaints, DATCP’s mediation resulted in consumers receiving thousands of dollars in refunds on products and services like timeshare memberships, malfunctioning refrigerators, and concert tickets.
