CFPB Consumer Complaints Scraper

Extract 17M+ consumer financial complaints from the official U.S. CFPB database — no API key required. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, and AI agents via Apify MCP.

What This Actor Does

Scrapes the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database — the U.S. government's official public record of consumer financial complaints filed against banks, credit bureaus, debt collectors, mortgage lenders, and other financial institutions.

Data is sourced directly from the CFPB's own public API (consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/search/api/v1/). No authentication needed. Government open data.

Who This Is For

• Fintech compliance teams — monitor complaint trends for competing products
• Banking & insurance analysts — track company response rates and dispute outcomes
• Legal & regulatory researchers — analyze complaint patterns by product/issue/state
• AI agents via Claude/ChatGPT MCP — query financial complaint data conversationally
• Data scientists — build NLP models on 17M+ consumer narratives
• Journalists & policy researchers — investigate consumer protection issues

What Data You Get

Each complaint record includes:

Field	Description
complaint_id	Unique CFPB complaint ID
date_received	Date CFPB received the complaint
product	Financial product category (e.g. "Mortgage", "Credit card")
sub_product	Sub-product type
issue	Primary complaint issue
sub_issue	Specific sub-issue
company	Name of the financial company
state	US state of the consumer
zip_code	Consumer ZIP code
submitted_via	How complaint was filed (Web, Phone, etc.)
date_sent_to_company	When CFPB forwarded complaint to company
company_response	Company's official response
company_public_response	Public-facing company statement
timely	Whether company responded on time
consumer_disputed	Whether consumer disputed the response
has_narrative	Whether complaint includes consumer's written narrative
tags	Special tags (Servicemember, Older American, etc.)
complaint_what_happened	Consumer's written narrative (when available)
cfpb_url	Direct URL to complaint on CFPB website
scraped_at	ISO timestamp when record was scraped

Example Input

{
  "product": "Mortgage",
  "company": "BANK OF AMERICA",
  "state": "CA",
  "dateReceivedMin": "2024-01-01",
  "dateReceivedMax": "2024-12-31",
  "sortBy": "created_date_desc",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Example Output

[
  {
    "complaint_id": "9876543",
    "date_received": "2024-06-15",
    "product": "Mortgage",
    "sub_product": "Conventional home mortgage",
    "issue": "Trouble during payment process",
    "sub_issue": "Payment processing",
    "company": "BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION",
    "state": "CA",
    "zip_code": "90210",
    "submitted_via": "Web",
    "date_sent_to_company": "2024-06-15T00:00:00.000Z",
    "company_response": "Closed with explanation",
    "company_public_response": "Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB",
    "timely": "Yes",
    "consumer_disputed": "N/A",
    "has_narrative": false,
    "tags": null,
    "complaint_what_happened": "",
    "cfpb_url": "https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/search/?complaint_id=9876543",
    "scraped_at": "2025-01-15T12:00:00Z"
  }
]

AI Agent Queries This Actor Answers

• "Show me mortgage complaints against Wells Fargo in Texas in 2024"
• "Get the 50 most recent credit reporting complaints"
• "Find debt collection complaints from California consumers"
• "What issues are consumers complaining about with credit cards?"
• "Export CFPB complaint data for compliance research"
• "Give me complaints where company responded late"
• "Find complaints with consumer narratives about identity theft"
• "Analyze complaint patterns for a specific financial company"
• "Get CFPB data for my fintech compliance dashboard"
• "Monitor new consumer complaints filed this week"

How to Use with AI Agents (Claude MCP / ChatGPT)

1. Connect Apify to Claude or ChatGPT via Apify MCP
2. Ask: "Use the CFPB complaints scraper to get the 20 most recent mortgage complaints against Bank of America"
3. The AI agent will run this actor automatically and return structured data

Tags

cfpb consumer complaints financial data government data compliance fintech banking mortgage credit reporting debt collection open data B2B lead generation

Notes

• Data is sourced from the official CFPB public API — no login or API key required
• The CFPB database contains 17M+ complaints going back to 2011
• Consumer narratives (complaint_what_happened) are only populated when has_narrative: true
• Government open data — freely reusable under US government open data policy
• Works with Claude, ChatGPT, and any AI agent via Apify MCP