CFPB implements new requirements for complaints on its portal

• Key insight: The three credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — say the complaint portal is being abused by third-party credit repair firms and AI bots.
• What's at stake: Credit repair firms are using the CFPB's complaint portal to try to remove accurate but negative information from credit reports.
• Supporting data: Credit reporting complaints hit an all-time high in 2024 of more than 2 million complaints, up 180% over two years. 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau suddenly added new requirements to its consumer complaint portal that aims to reduce the number of disputes about inaccurate information on credit reports at a time when complaints have hit an all-time high.

The CFPB on Wednesday added two pages of disclaimers to the portal and added another notice Thursday, according to consumer advocates that track the site. The three pages of instructions notify consumers not to file complaints about inaccurate information on a credit report. The bureau also is requiring citizens attest to the truthfulness of any complaint and provide personal information so the CFPB knows they are a real person who can be identified.

The changes were influenced by the three credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — and industry trade groups that allege the complaint portal is being abused by third-party credit repair firms and AI bots, leading to a flood of "meritless," duplicative and robot-generated complaints.

"This is a great step in the right direction and we're very gratified to see it," said Philip Bohi, general counsel at the American Financial Services Association, a trade group representing 450 companies in the consumer credit industry. "We are just trying to reduce the number of complaints to the CFPB's complaint portal that are not appropriate to be there."

The trade group that represents the three big credit bureaus, the Consumer Data Industry Association, asked the CFPB to "place a prominent notice at the beginning of the complaint process," to make clear to the consumer that complaints about credit reporting agencies must first be submitted to the bank, credit issuer or furnisher, and not the CFPB.

The CDIA wants more changes including having the CFPB implement two-factor authentication, restrict the number of complaints that can be filed per phone number, and limit the ability of single IP addresses to submit complaints on behalf of multiple consumers.

CDIA said in a comment letter that it wants the CFPB to state prominently on the portal that "knowingly providing incorrect information to a government agency can be prosecuted criminally," which would include anyone impersonating another person. 

Consumer advocates said the CFPB under the Trump administration is doing the bidding of industry.

"They seem to be trying to deter consumers from filing complaints in a rather heavy-handed manner," said Chi Chi Wu, the director of consumer reporting and credit advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center. "The first thing they've done is to slap a notice on the portal saying people have to file a dispute with the credit bureaus before filing a complaint with the CFPB."

The CFPB made the changes to its complaint portal after issuing a request for information in November. The bureau asked for public comment on ways to "minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents," which include banks, financial firms and credit reporting agencies. The CFPB received just 10 responses to its initial request. 

Complaints about credit reporting have skyrocketed recently. 

In 2024, the bureau received 2 million complaints about credit reporting agencies, up 180% over two years, the CFPB found. Credit reporting accounts for between 80% to 85% of all complaints.

"It is getting to a boiling point where you're seeing so many more of these complaints filed with boiler-plate language," said David Pommerehn, the Consumer Bankers Association's senior vice president, general counsel and head of regulatory affairs. He cited "unscrupulous credit repair and other organizations falsely identifying themselves as individual consumers."

Another problematic issue is that trade groups claim that the three main credit bureaus are not required to manage or reinvestigate disputes filed through the CFPB's complaint portal.

The bureau requires credit reporting agencies to respond to complaints through the portal as if they were disputes. Credit bureaus must conduct reinvestigations for each complaint. The CFPB's portal also includes submissions that are neither complaints nor disputes such as fraud-blocking and security-freeze requests, which the industry says violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or FCRA, the 1970 law that protects consumers from inaccuracies on credit reports.

Wu said she is concerned that the CFPB will accede to the industry's other requests. For example, if the bureau tries to reduce complaints filed from a single IP address, it would hurt consumers that file complaints from a library computer or through a credit counselor. 

"A lot of consumers don't have home broadband, so they might go to the library to file a complaint," Wu said. "Does that mean the CFPB can't accept multiple complaints from one IP address?"

In another change, the CFPB's disclaimers tell consumers to wait 45 days after filing a dispute with a credit reporting agency before filing a complaint with the CFPB. Under the FCRA, credit bureaus generally have 30 days to investigate and resolve disputes and another 15 days to review new evidence after an initial dispute has been filed. 

The complaint database has long been considered to be an early warning system for the CFPB to identify areas of concern to investigate and increase supervision of certain companies and products. The financial services industry has been asking for the CFPB to take steps to improve the quality of complaint submissions, and specifically to eliminate unsubstantiated complaints that cannot be verified.

"We asked the CFPB to reject people who go to the CFPB's complaint portal and try to file a complaint that is a credit reporting dispute, and to refer them to those proper channels. And so yesterday, we saw for the first time this effort that the CFPB has undertaken to do just that," Bohi said. "The credit reporting system is supposed to be a fair reflection of people's history using credit, so when they apply for credit in the future, they can get the best terms possible."