Banking and Finance Law Daily Wrap Up, CONSUMER CREDIT—CFPB report details increase in consumer reporting complaint, (Jan 2, 2026)

By Jeff Williams

The report showed a 3,000 percent increase in complaints to NCRAs.

Nearly 4.8 million of the more than 5.6 million complaints that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau received between Jan. 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, were about credit and consumer reporting, with about 3.9 million made about Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, the three largest nationwide consumer reporting agencies (NCRAs), the agency said in its annual report on credit and consumer reporting complaints called for by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

“Complaints to NCRAs dominated the overall growth of credit reporting complaints, with an almost 3,000% increase in NCRA complaints since January 1, 2020,” the CFPB said, adding that there was also an increase of 1,000 percent in the number of complaints made about furnishers and other, more specialized CRAs.

In response to the “dramatic growth in complaint volume,” the CFPB said that it is “exploring ways to institute reforms to improve the complaint process and enhance the utility of the data to the marketplace.”

The agency noted that it has previously identified reasons for increased complaint volume, including that there has been an increase in third parties using the complaint process, “including credit repair organizations and those who offer credit advice online and on social media platforms (so called 'finfluencers' or 'FinTok').”

The report focused on data collected from January 2024 through June 2025 but also includes data “going back to 2020 to provide more context in some figures,” the CFPB said.

The report said that there has been an “increase in the number of consumers coming to the CFPB’s process, an increase in the number of complaints submitted in a single session, and an increase in the number of consumers returning to the complaint process.” In addition, it said, new technologies, such as large language models and autonomous software systems “only further complicate this area and create greater demands on government and companies generally.”

The report also noted that the share of consumers reporting a previous dispute has “hovered around 90% for all three NCRAs since 2020,” though the NCRAs’ responses have “diverged considerably” during that time. While Equifax’s confirmation rate “fell to the high 20s during 2022 and then hovered around 37% from 2024 through mid-2025,” Experian’s rate “steadily climbed since 2021 until it met the consumer rate in 2024, and it exceeded the consumer rate nearly every month after.” TransUnion’s confirmation rate “jumped from about 5% to 30% in 2022 and stayed near that level through mid-2025,” the report said.

Among other findings, the CFPB said that the monthly volume of complaints Experian has identified as resulting in relief decreased during the reporting period and its use of administrative responses increased. In contrast, Equifax and TransUnion generally reported monthly increases in the number of complaints that they closed with “non-monetary relief.”

The CFPB said that while TransUnion “consistently” took about 40 days to respond to complaints and Equifax “vacillated around a similar length,” Experian has “consistently” taken nearly all of the 60-day response limit set by the agency. “In the most recent months, all three NCRAs have average response times that exceed 50 days,” the report said.

RegulatoryActivity: CFPB CommunityDevelopment ConsumerCredit