CFPB consumer complaint

What this actually is

A free complaint that a company has to answer. The CFPB routes your complaint to the company and most companies respond within 15 days, with up to 60 days where a response is still in progress. Covered: checking and savings accounts, credit cards, credit reports, debt collection, mortgages, payday loans, personal loans, prepaid cards, student loans, vehicle loans and leases, money transfers and virtual currency. Submitting online usually takes under ten minutes. This is the lever that most often produces an actual response from a company that has been ignoring you — it is not a guarantee of the outcome you want, but the company is answering on a public record.

Who qualifies, and what trips people up

Anyone; no cost, no eligibility test. You get email updates and can track status. Complaints are published in anonymised form in the Consumer Complaint Database. Write it with dates, dollar amounts and account numbers — a vague complaint gets a vague answer. Use this alongside, not instead of, a written dispute to the company itself.