FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 9, 2026
CONTACTS: Jarice Thompson, jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org; Stephen Rouzer, srouzer@nclc.org ; Nicholas Rubando nrubando@consumerfed.org, Ruth Sussswein, ruth.susswein@consumer-action.org; Christine Hines, christine@consumeradvocates.org; Eric Naing, eric@demandprogress.org
Trump-Vought Consumer Financial Protection Bureau takes steps to reduce the number of people who seek help from the consumer agency
Despite new hurdles, consumers should continue to submit complaints
WASHINGTON – Last week, the Trump-Vought Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) moved to make it harder for people to seek help with financial problems by filing a complaint with the consumer agency. Consumers who file a complaint with CFPB are now hit with aggressive new warning notices alerting them not to submit a credit reporting complaint to the consumer agency unless a dispute has already been formally filed with the credit reporting agency (CRA).
The notices, which went live on February 4, also require people to agree to onerous and legally dubious statements about their eligibility to seek help. The notices are not limited to complaints about credit reporting errors, but appear before consumers file complaints for any financial issue ranging from mortgages to debt collection.
The action was taken without any formal notice just days after the CFPB announced a public input process to collect more information on how the consumer complaint system is working. The changes also appear to follow industry requests made last month to reduce the number of consumer complaints about credit reporting errors submitted to the CFPB.
“Consumers are bound to find these warnings intimidating, given that the CFPB is the federal agency that Americans have come to rely on to get some relief from their unresolved disputes with big financial firms,” said Ruth Susswein, director of Consumer Protection at Consumer Action. “We encourage consumers to continue to submit complaints about ongoing credit reporting disputes with both the credit bureau and the CFPB. It is people’s right to report problems, and the agency’s responsibility to insist on a fair financial marketplace.”
“This appears to be an effort to stifle complaints. There’s absolutely nothing in the law that created the CFPB – the Consumer Financial Protection Act – that requires consumers to contact the credit bureaus before complaining to the CFPB,” said Chi Chi Wu, director of consumer reporting and data advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center. “People with complaints about their credit reports can choose to send a dispute first to the credit bureaus, and it triggers certain rights under a different law, the Fair Credit Reporting Act. But it’s their right to choose where to complain first.”
The consumer agency received more than 5.6 million consumer complaints in 2025, doubling the complaint volume of the previous year. Credit reporting complaints accounted for 85 percent of all complaints, with consumers often describing problems with incorrect information. These errors can drive up costs across every aspect of their financial lives. Companies reported more than 2 million people getting relief from filing a credit reporting consumer complaint in 2025.
“The credit bureaus wanted fewer complaints, and the Trump-Vought CFPB delivered,” said Tom Feltner, associate director for consumer policy at Americans for Financial Reform. “But those complaints represent real families facing real financial harm. Making it harder to complain about your mortgage or credit card doesn’t fix the problems—it just hides them from public view while people continue to pay the price.”
“Credit reporting errors and problems can cost families thousands in higher interest rates or even risk access to jobs, mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards and prevent people from becoming homeowners or buying cars,” said Christine Hines, senior policy director at the National Association of Consumer Advocates. “The CFPB’s complaint system exists to help consumers resolve these issues and alleviate some of the harm.”
“People should not have to jump through multiple, legally dubious hoops just to lodge a complaint about an error on their credit report,” said Demand Progress Education Fund Policy Director Emily Peterson-Cassin. “These changes implemented by the Trump administration will scare people away from making complaints, which is probably the point. The big banks and Wall Street hold our everyday financial lives in their hands and we should be able to call them out, at the very least.”
“Not only does the complaint system solve problems faced by millions of households across the country, but it also serves as a critical early warning system for state Attorneys General and other state financial regulators,” said Adam Rust, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America. “Obstructing consumers from making use of the complaint database undermines essential law enforcement activity.”
Congress created the complaint system and the CFPB with a mandate to ensure that consumers’ financial complaints would be addressed by banks, credit bureaus, debt collectors, mortgage servicers, and other companies that do business with them.
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Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition founded by more than 200 civil rights, community-based, consumer, labor, small business, investor, faith-based, civic groups, and individual experts. It was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and its mission is to fight to create a financial system that deconstructs inequality and systemic racism and promotes a just and sustainable economy.
Demand Progress Education Fund is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that educates and mobilizes its members and the general public about matters pertaining to the democratic nature of our nation’s communications infrastructure and governance structures, and the impacts of corporate power over our economy and democracy.
Through education and advocacy, Consumer Action has fought for strong consumer rights and policies that promote fairness and financial prosperity for underrepresented consumers nationwide, since 1971.
The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) is an association of approximately 250 non-profit consumer organizations established in 1968 to advance consumer interests through research, advocacy, and education.
The National Association of Consumer Advocates is actively engaged in promoting a fair and open marketplace that forcefully protects the rights of all consumers, particularly those of modest means.
Since 1969, the nonprofit National Consumer Law Center® (NCLC®) has worked for consumer justice and economic security for low-income and other disadvantaged people in the U.S. through its expertise in policy analysis and advocacy, publications, litigation, expert witness services, and training.