The State
of Complaints

The volume doubled.

Every year, millions of people file complaints with the CFPB. In 2025, that number reached 6,635,400 an increase of 108% in a single year, and a 19× rise from 2019. Each complaint is a person who felt the system failed them.

Where the complaints are.

Credit reporting dominates at 87.5% of all complaints, with Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian together named in 961,570 filings. Beneath the headline, complaint growth concentrates in smaller categories: crypto crossed 100,000 for the first time (up 281% year over year), and healthcare BNPL named-company complaints jumped from 11 to 221.

The Big Three bureaus.

Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian are the three largest named targets in the CFPB database. Together they were named in 961,570 filings in 2025. That is 16.6% of all credit-reporting complaints, and the largest single-company concentration anywhere in the dataset.

Geographic distribution.

California leads in total volume with 892,000 complaints. On a per-capita basis the order flips: Washington DC tops the country at 4,763 complaints per 100,000 residents, followed by Georgia (3,609), Maryland (3,163), Nevada (2,958), and Florida (2,688). Complaint density is driven by a mix of Southeast and Mid-Atlantic geographies rather than any single corridor.

Top three by per capita rate.

$293M+ in enforcement.

Six major enforcement actions in 2025 delivered $293.7M in combined penalties and consumer relief across the CFPB and FTC. Click any case below to see the violation summary and the complaint trajectory leading up to action.

Case details.

Action structure.

The public verdict.

The CFPB captures what consumers will put on record with the federal government. Trustpilot captures what they post publicly for other consumers to see 24.6 million reviews across US financial services. The two data sources rarely agree, and the divergence is its own signal: companies with strong UX absorb friction before it escalates to regulators, while poorly-run firms bleed anger through every available channel.

Where the data sources disagree.

For each major financial services company, we compared CFPB formal complaint volume against Trustpilot review sentiment. Fintechs and BNPL platforms score 4.0+ on Trustpilot but barely register at the CFPB. Credit bureaus and traditional banks bleed through both channels.

The divergence map.

Plotting every major financial services company on two axes CFPB complaint volume (regulated channel) and Trustpilot TrustScore (public sentiment) reveals four distinct operational archetypes.

Top 1-star review themes.

Analysis of 4.7M 1-star Trustpilot reviews surfaced six dominant complaint themes, accounting for 92% of all 1-star mentions. Most map cleanly to CFPB complaint categories the same failure modes appearing in both datasets.

The bimodal industry.

Trustpilot's data shows a financial services industry clustered at the extremes. Fintechs, BNPL platforms, and modern lenders sit above 4.3. Traditional banks, credit bureaus, and debt collectors sit below 1.5. Most named companies fall outside the 2.0 to 4.0 mid-band, though some segments (notably investment platforms at 2.4) occupy that thin middle.

The coverage gap.

Most compliance teams review 3% of customer interactions. At real volume, that means every day thousands of conversations go unmonitored and based on historical sampling, roughly 4% of unmonitored calls contain potential violations. Drag the slider to see the scale.

The predictive gap.

Every major 2024 enforcement action against a high-volume financial services company was preceded by a sustained complaint-growth trajectory. Not a sudden spike, a steady ramp: enforced firms averaged +24% year-over-year complaint growth in the window before action, versus 12–18% for size-matched non-enforced peers. The signal is gradual, but it is there.

Enforced firms vs their peers.

For each of six 2024–2025 enforcement targets, we compared CFPB complaint-growth trajectories against a size-matched peer in the same product category that did not receive action. The enforced firm grew faster in every case.

Where complaints and enforcement diverge.

Complaint volume is not an even proxy for regulatory attention. Credit reporting is 88% of all complaints and receives just 1–2 enforcement actions a year. Mortgage complaints are 0.5% of volume but the category drew 6 actions in 2024 alone. The correlation between a category's complaint share and its next-year enforcement count is essentially zero (r = −0.21). CFPB enforcement is investigation-driven, not volume-driven.

What the pattern means.