The CFPB is Correcting Flaws to Restore Integrity and Utility to the Consumer Complaint System
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The consumer complaint portal has long been plagued by issues that severely limit its effectiveness in addressing consumers’ complaints and practical utility of its information. Recently, CFPB has taken multiple concrete actions to address these issues and is continuing its work, including with Credit Reporting Agencies, to increase effectiveness of the process, while aligning it with the statutory authorities: Read more here: The consumer complaint portal has long been plagued by issues that severely limit its effectiveness in addressing consumers’ complaints and practical utility of its information. Recently, the CFPB has taken multiple concrete actions, including with Credit Reporting Agencies, to address these issues and is continuing its work to increase effectiveness of the process, while aligning it with the statutory authorities. First, users abusing the process stress the systems of the Bureau and companies and impede timely processing of legitimate complaints. This harms consumers and wastes resources. Credit reporting complaint volume increased dramatically in recent years. In 2019, the Bureau received more than 150,000 credit or consumer reporting complaints. In 2025, that number grew to more than five million—an increase of more than 3,700%. Amidst this record complaint volume, the nationwide consumer reporting agencies (NCRAs)—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—reported making more updates and deletions to inaccurate tradelines than in prior years. In 2024, the NCRAs closed more than 1.3 million complaints with non-monetary relief. In 2025, that number grew to 2.1 million. The increase is driven by many—sometimes, overlapping—factors: credit repair organizations and credit clinics misusing the Bureau’s complaint process as a tool of their business, social media influencers with questionable expertise encouraging followers to submit complaints, adoption of new technologies (e.g., “AI tools”) that may act as an individual’s agent, and the emergence of new businesses that seek to boost credit scores by disputing accurate information on consumers’ reports. Second, the NCRAs have not been uniformly reporting how they respond to the growing number of consumer complaints. The Bureau has been collaborating with the NCRAs to better understand their complaint handling practices, and to ensure consumers receive timely, complete, and accurate responses to their credit reporting complaints. Credit reporting complaints represent the largest share of all complaints submitted to the Bureau. Without addressing these issues, the CFPB cannot rely upon the consumer complaint portal data as a reliable reflection of actual market conditions or actual consumer experiences. The Bureau is collaborating with NCRAs and other companies to implement the following changes to address these longstanding issues: Through its outreach to CRAs and other companies, the Bureau learned that companies operationalized the closure definitions differently with some companies using different definitions to categorize a complaint “Closed with non-monetary relief.” What actions are we taking? The Bureau issued a new Company Portal Manual that provides clear information on how companies should use the various substantive and administrative response closure categories and answers to frequently asked questions. That will allow for standardization of data on responses across CRAs. Once the data can be standardized, the Bureau will continue to work with CRAs to ensure data are consistent across them and response rates are appropriately high. Security is top of mind for the Bureau’s complaint system. Likewise, companies need reassurance that they are responding to their customer and safeguarding their privacy. What actions are we taking? The Bureau launched two-factor authentication, requiring users who create online accounts to verify both their email address and mobile phone number. It also added clarifying text and new relationship categories to emphasize that third parties must disclose their involvement in the complaint process. The CFPB plans to implement address validation at the complaint submission step to ensure companies can act on high-quality information. The Bureau is also working on user support materials so adult children of aging parents, spouses of servicemembers, and other authorized representatives know how to submit complaints.
