Complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have skyrocketed in 2025, a trend that experts say is driven by a rise in complaints related to payment scams targeting Zelle on social media and increased public awareness of the CFPB being dismantled by the Trump administration.
The total number of complaints filed with the CFPB since its inception recently surpassed 10 million. But the proportional rise in complaints in the first half of 2025 is staggering.
For example, the CFPB received roughly 29,000 complaints in the first half of 2025 filed under the subcategory of domestic money transfers, up from roughly 1,300 complaints in 2024, a 2,051% year-over-year increase.
Jim McCarthy, chairman at McCarthy-Hatch, a consulting firm that advises financial institutions on risk management and regulatory compliance, said the jump appears to be fueled by a combination of scams perpetrated through social media, media coverage of lawsuits and rules filed by the CFPB last year, as well as political and social issues.
"The bureau's scrutiny of real-time payments and virtual currency access looks like it's finally hitting the public nerve — and the database is where that pain is showing up first," said McCarthy, a founding member of the CFPB, who designed, built and deployed the consumer complaints database. "The surge appears to be fueled by a perfect storm of consumer vulnerability and regulatory spotlight."
In 2024, total complaints to the CFPB jumped 92% to 3,187,900, up from 1,657,600 complaints in 2023. By comparison, in the first six months of 2025 complaints jumped 130% to 2.5 million, up from 1.1 million in the same period a year earlier.
"There is a big surge in complaints from multiple things that are happening — it's not one or the other," said Marcia Tal, CEO of Tal Solutions, a New York data analytics firm, and founder of PositivityTech, a platform that allows companies to analyze consumer complaints sent to the CFPB. "There are still legitimate complaints and there are scams and fraud, and the power is to be able to have the science and expertise to separate these things out. The increased use of generative AI makes it even more complicated."
One of the factors likely driving the surge in CFPB complaints is a TikTok scam that went viral earlier this year. Starting in January, TikTok influencers began urging consumers to file claims with the CFPB in order to get a check from a fictitious Zelle "settlement," and soliciting payments to the influencers in the process. From Jan. 1 to March 1, the CFPB received roughly 15,000 complaints about Zelle, according to the platform's parent company, Early Warning Services in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"The role of these Tik Tok influencers telling everybody what to do is impacting complaints just as they impact any other part of our lives," said Tal. "It's a cultural thing. People watch these videos all day and there is a lot of noise in everything. Consumers are on the receiving end of this and they could be harmed because of the abuse that is potentially in the system."
The TikTok scam and other copycat scams on social media typically cite
"Scams don't start on Zelle, they start with criminals manipulating people," said a spokesman for Early Warning Services, which is owned by the seven largest banks. "The real threat isn't the payment method, it's criminals exploiting Americans through texts, DMs and online marketplace scams."
Nearly 50% of scams on Zelle originated on Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, according to
Media attention may have prompted some of the complaints. Under former CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, the CFPB began examining how digital wallets handle fraud and consumer disputes under Regulation E. In March, the CFPB under the Trump administration
In late 2024, the CFPB under the Biden administration finalized a rule to bring large, nonbank digital payment and digital wallet companies under its supervisory authority, which would have allowed the companies to examine practices related to fraud prevention and error resolution.
The CFPB under Chopra had
In April, the House voted under the Congressional Review Act to overturn the CFPB's larger participant rule, which would have subjected certain large nonbank digital payment companies to supervision. The CRA allows Congress to overturn certain agency rules with a simple majority vote in both houses, and the resolution prevents the bureau from reissuing a similar rule in the future without specific authorization from Congress. President Trump
In addition, student loan payments began resuming under the Trump administration, which resulted in aggressive marketing by debt relief firms that saw complaints triple, said McCarthy. The CFPB has been in the news so much and economic uncertainty also is causing more people to rely more on financial service providers.
Banks also were targeted due to "fee increases, fintech tie-ins and [bank] account restrictions that brought more complaints against traditional banks," McCarthy said.
Currently, most of the CFPB is not functioning and companies have little incentive to participate in the complaint process because there is
Acting CFPB Director Russell Vought is working to dismantle the agency and has filed plans
Congress also is taking action against financial scams.
Last month, Reps. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Mark Warner, D-Va., introduced the bipartisan Task Force for Recognizing and Averting Payments Scams Act, which would create a task force to combat the growing issue of payment scams. Consumers reported losing more than $12.5 billion
