How to Read the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau publishes a real-time database of complaints submitted against financial institutions — banks, credit card companies, mortgage servicers, debt collectors, and more. It's one of the most useful public accountability tools in financial regulation. Here's how to make sense of it.

What the database contains

Since 2011, the CFPB has published every complaint it receives that meets basic criteria: the company is identified, the consumer's contact information is confirmed, and the complaint describes a commercial consumer financial product or service. As of 2026, the database contains more than 5 million complaints.

Each record includes:

• The company name and product/service type
• The issue category (e.g., "Incorrect information on your report")
• The company's response and whether it was timely
• Whether the consumer received monetary relief
• The date submitted and date of company response
• The consumer's narrative (when the consumer consents to publish it)
• State and ZIP code

What the data doesn't tell you

Complaint counts are not a direct measure of how well a bank treats its customers. Large banks receive more complaints simply because they have more customers — Bank of America, with tens of millions of accounts, will always have more complaints than a community bank with 5,000 depositors.

The CFPB does not verify most complaints before publishing. The company named may dispute the facts. A complaint being "closed with relief" doesn't always mean the company was at fault; it may mean they made a goodwill gesture to resolve the situation quickly.

The right metrics to use

Raw complaint counts are nearly useless for comparison. More useful signals:

• Complaints per billion dollars in assets: Normalizes by institution size. A bank with $100B in assets and 5,000 complaints has a much smaller complaint rate than one with $1B in assets and 1,000 complaints.
• % receiving monetary relief: When a meaningful share of complaints result in relief, it may indicate systematic issues the company is quietly resolving.
• % with untimely responses: Companies are expected to respond within 15 days. High untimely response rates can indicate operational problems.
• Top product: If the majority of complaints about a bank are in one product category (e.g., "Checking or savings account"), that's a specific signal worth investigating.
• Trend over time: Is the complaint rate rising, falling, or stable? A spike may indicate a specific incident (a system outage, a product change, a billing error).

How the CFPB uses complaints

Complaint data feeds directly into CFPB supervision and enforcement. Patterns of complaints in a product category can trigger an examination. High rates of unresolved or disputed complaints are a supervisory concern. The CFPB has brought enforcement actions citing complaint data as evidence of patterns of harm.

Complaints also shape CFPB rulemaking priorities. High complaint volumes about a specific issue — such as junk fees, overdraft charges, or credit reporting errors — often precede regulatory action in that area.

How to file a complaint

If you have an unresolved issue with a bank, filing a CFPB complaint is often more effective than calling customer service again. Companies are required to respond within 15 days and provide a substantive response within 60 days. The CFPB follows up on cases that go unresolved.

You can file at consumerfinance.gov. The complaint becomes part of the public record once the company responds (or after 15 days if they don't).

Using Bank Scorer's complaint data

Bank Scorer attaches CFPB complaint summary data to every bank profile: 12-month complaint count, all-time total, complaints per billion in assets, top product category, and percentage receiving monetary relief. You can also browse complaints by bank to see the trend over time.