Zip codes with median annual household incomes higher than the national median generated 11,045 complaints, or 59.6 percent of the total, the data show. Boca Raton zip code 33496 produced 94 complaints, the most in the country, while 54 complaints came from Manhattan’s Upper West Side zip codes 10023 and 10024 combined.

Warren’s Focus

Prosperous people “can often get upset over small amounts of money. You find these people with a huge net worth worrying about a $3 fee,” said Steven Ramirez, the chief executive of Beyond the Arc Inc., a Berkeley, California-based consulting firm that uses the consumer bureau’s system to help companies improve customer service.

Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who set up the bureau before she won a seat in the U.S. Senate, said in March 2011 congressional testimony that the focus on credit cards was meant to help millions of borrowers who use them “to pay for medical expenses, to cover educational costs, to tide them over during a period of unemployment, to cover emergency expenses, or simply to make it to the end of the month.”

Card Use

The fact that more complaints are coming from wealthier communities doesn’t mean that the bureau is helping those groups disproportionately, said Matt Simester, managing director at Auriemma Consulting Group Inc., a New York-based firm that advises card issuers.

It may reflect that people with higher incomes are more likely to hold credit cards and that many consumers aren’t yet aware they can file complaints through the agency, Simester said.

In its most recent report on card usage, the Census Bureau found that in 2007 more than 94 percent of households with incomes of $100,000 or more had credit cards, while just 28 percent of those with incomes of $10,000 and below used them. People with incomes above $150,000 in 2012 had an average of 3.8 credit cards, according to a survey by Auriemma.

The consumer bureau’s data suggest that income has little bearing on the resolution of the complaints. In zip codes where income was greater than the national median, 17.8 percent of consumers got some money back. From areas below the national median, a slightly larger percentage, 18.1 percent, got the same treatment. In both income groups, about 23 percent of consumers got no monetary or other relief.

‘Red Flag’