Credit bureaus drew over 4 million complaints in 2025
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has discontinued publication of consumer complaint narratives — the written, first-person descriptions that for more than a decade provided the public a window into Americans’ disputes with banks, debt collectors, credit bureaus and payday lenders.
The CFPB announced the change last month in a press release, according to ProPublica, which reported on the development Tuesday. The agency said: “Publishing such narratives in the Database provides a less-than-representative sample of one-sided experiences.”
The complaint system itself, which routes millions of consumer submissions annually to companies for response, is required by law. Publication of those complaint narratives is not.
The change is part of a broader trend of the administration taking a friendlier approach with businesses — even at the federal agency tasked with guarding consumers from unfair and deceptive practices, according to ProPublica. The decision to stop publishing narratives aligns the agency with corporations that have criticized the system for years.
The change has occurred under the leadership of acting director Russell Vought. In April 2025, the CFPB attempted to fire roughly 90% of its staff before a federal court blocked the move. ProPublica reported that Vought and his allies then refashioned the agency into an industry-friendly regulator.
In July congressional testimony, addressing ProPublica’s reporting on credit bureau complaints, Vought said: “with credit reporting agencies we saw things in the news that were concerning to us. We reached out to them.”
The database had provided a rare public record of consumer experiences. A ProPublica data reporter described it as “a rare federal dataset that captured human emotions.” Credit reporting agencies were the most common subject in the database, with over 4 million complaints filed about them in 2025. ProPublica reported in March that Experian and TransUnion provided relief to a substantially smaller portion of consumers last year.
A Texas consumer filed parallel complaints to all three major credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — regarding a fraudulent account that remained on their credit report despite repeated disputes, according to ProPublica. “I have an important deal that I need to complete that is important for the safety and survival of my family, and this issue has damaged my credit score,” the consumer wrote.
CFPB records show that Equifax provided relief in response to that complaint, while TransUnion and Experian did not. After ProPublica reported on the disparity, four Democratic senators wrote to the credit bureaus demanding answers on how they handle disputes.
The credit bureaus told ProPublica that many complaints are illegitimate, including a large volume filed by credit repair organizations that charge customers to challenge negative information on their reports. They declined to comment on specific complaints.
Complaint narratives had also been used to document high-interest tribal lending. ProPublica’s data reporter and colleague Megan O’Matz used the complaints to report on high-interest tribal loans that skirt state interest rate caps to charge 600% interest or more. The database helped point them to an opaque but massive tribal lending operation based in Wisconsin, which the newsroom estimated was involved in thousands of bankruptcies nationwide each year.
“THIS IS THE TEXTBOOK DEFINITION ON LOANSHARKING,” one borrower wrote in a complaint. The same borrower argued that “no one should be expected to pay over $11,000 for a $1,200 loan” and called the 790% rate “beyond predatory.”
The tribe’s president, John Johnson Sr., told ProPublica in emails that the lending business is legal and said the loans help people “without access to traditional financial services.” He added that many borrowers have had positive experiences. Months after the report, the tribe settled a civil suit filed by Minnesota’s attorney general. The tribe denied the allegations but agreed to stop lending to Minnesotans and forgive outstanding loans to the state’s residents.
The complaint database had also captured customer-service failures at financial technology companies. Last month, ProPublica’s Andy Kroll reported on the Trump CFPB’s light-touch approach to oversight, focusing on its ask-nicely strategy of holding the fintech startup Bilt accountable after the company threw users’ accounts into chaos twice in quick succession. The story included complaints about how Bilt’s artificial intelligence support system gave information that was “completely wrong” and “demonstrably … false.”
In a statement at the time, Bilt said its new card had “attracted unexpectedly high demand, and some of our members experienced gaps in service that are simply unacceptable to us.” The company told ProPublica it resolved all problems related to the new cards “months ago.” The CFPB did not respond to any ProPublica questions or requests for comment.
Industry groups representing companies most often named in complaints had campaigned against the database for years. The Consumer Data Industry Association, which represents the major credit bureaus, has argued in correspondence with the agency that publishing complaint narratives would “harm the brands of legitimate, law-abiding companies” by presenting “unverified, self-selected negative anecdotes.” In a January public comment letter, the association called the complaint portal “a sort of ‘Yelp for Financial Services’” and asserted that the CFPB lacks the authority to publish complaint data.
Although the CFPB has been the subject of partisan fights, the complaint system has seen bipartisan use. ProPublica reported that Republican lawmakers have referred thousands of constituents to the system for help, even as those same lawmakers voted last year to slash the agency’s budget by nearly half.
The complaint narratives remain subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, according to ProPublica, though obtaining them that way could be time-consuming and challenging. In theory, a future administration could resume publication. However, the agency has removed the option for consumers to consent to making their written accounts public, meaning complaints filed in the near term cannot be retroactively published.