The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today unveiled actions to “restore integrity and utility” to its consumer complaint portal, which it said would increase the effectiveness of the complaint system.
The online portal “has long been plagued by issues that severely limit its effectiveness in addressing consumers’ complaints and practical utility of its information,” the CFPB said. Among other things, it said that users abusing the complaint process impede the timely processing of legitimate complaints.
A primary driver of the challenges with the portal has been the dramatic increase in volume of credit reporting complaints, which has increased by more than 3700% between 2019 and 2025, the CFPB said. “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.”
Changes to the portal include revising the manual to ensure credit reporting agencies follow a standardized process in addressing complaints, enhancing identity protections, aligning the complaint process to statutory obligations, and focusing resources on complaints that warrant a substantive response. The CPFB is also seeking to educate consumers about how to address errors on their credit reports.
