CFPB Consumer Complaints Scraper - Companies, Products & Issues

Extract consumer financial complaints directly from the official Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Consumer Complaint Database Search API (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/search/api/v1/). Filter by financial institution, product category, state, and receipt date to analyze complaint volume, issue categories, company response classifications, and timeliness.

Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

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What it does

• Queries the Official CFPB Search API v1: Connects directly to https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/search/api/v1/ using sort=created_date_desc and cursor pagination (search_after) so queries can page cleanly beyond Elasticsearch's 10,000-row offset window.
• Company, Product, State & Date Filtering: Supports filtering by one or more CFPB company names, financial product categories (Credit card, Mortgage, Checking or savings account, Credit reporting or other personal consumer reports, etc.), US state codes, and dateFrom.
• Narratives (currently unavailable from the source): The CFPB removed consumer complaint narratives from the database (see the CFPB API release notes). The narrative field is therefore null for every row at present, whatever includeNarrative is set to. The input and field are kept for compatibility if the CFPB restores narratives.
• Schema Validation & Newest-First Ordering: Validates every record before output, deduplicates by complaintId, and sorts newest first by dateReceived descending (with complaintId descending tiebreaker) before applying maxItems.

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Who it's for

• Banking & Fintech Compliance Teams: Monitor complaint trends, issue classifications, and timely response metrics across peer financial institutions.
• Financial Services Product & Operations Analysts: Identify recurring operational issues across credit cards, mortgages, auto loans, checking accounts, and credit reporting.
• Academic & Policy Researchers: Analyze consumer financial protection trends by state, 3-digit/5-digit ZIP prefix, submission channel, and company response type.

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Input

All parameters have working defaults/prefills that return results in under 2 minutes with no proxy and no API key.

Field	Type	Default / Prefill	Description
companies	array<string>	["CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION"]	Exact CFPB company names (e.g. ["CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION"], ["JPMORGAN CHASE & CO."]). Leave empty for all companies.
products	array<string>	[]	Optional CFPB product categories (e.g. ["Credit card", "Mortgage"]). Leave empty for all products.
states	array<string>	[]	Two-letter US state or territory codes (e.g. ["AZ", "CA", "FL"]). Leave empty for all states.
dateFrom	string	"" (today − 30 days)	Earliest date_received in YYYY-MM-DD format. Defaults to 30 days ago when blank.
includeNarrative	boolean	false	Kept for compatibility. The CFPB no longer publishes complaint narratives, so narrative is null for every row even when this is true. Defaults to false.
maxItems	integer	200	Maximum number of complaint records to return.

Example input JSON

{
  "companies": ["CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION"],
  "products": [],
  "states": [],
  "dateFrom": "",
  "includeNarrative": false,
  "maxItems": 200
}

Example run options (with default $50 max charge protection)

When invoking via the Apify API or CLI, set a default maximum charge of $50 ("maxTotalChargeUsd": 50):

{
  "maxTotalChargeUsd": 50
}

The Actor checks calculate_max_event_charge_count_within_limit("apify-default-dataset-item") before every dataset push and stops cleanly when your spending limit is reached.

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Output

Results are saved to the default dataset, deduplicates by complaintId, and sorted by dateReceived descending.

Output fields

Field	Type	Description
complaintId	string	Unique CFPB complaint_id. Natural deduplication key.
dateReceived	string	Date the CFPB received the complaint (YYYY-MM-DD).
dateSentToCompany	string | null	Date the CFPB sent the complaint to the company (YYYY-MM-DD).
company	string	Financial institution or company name.
product	string | null	Primary financial product category.
subProduct	string | null	Sub-product classification.
issue	string | null	Primary consumer issue reported.
subIssue	string | null	Detailed sub-issue reported.
state	string | null	Two-letter US state or territory code.
zipCode	string | null	ZIP code as published by the CFPB (full 5-digit code where published; null where the CFPB suppresses it, e.g. low-population areas).
submittedVia	string | null	Submission channel (Web, Referral, Phone, Postal mail, etc.).
companyResponse	string | null	Company response classification (Closed with explanation, Closed with monetary relief, In progress, etc.).
companyPublicResponse	string | null	Optional public response statement chosen by the company.
timely	string | null	Whether the company responded within the CFPB timeframe (Yes / No).
consumerDisputed	string | null	Historical consumer dispute flag. Always null at present: the CFPB removed this field from the database export and API.
tags	string | null	Special demographic or statutory tags (Older American, Servicemember, etc.).
narrative	string | null	Consumer complaint narrative. Always null at present: the CFPB removed narratives from the database. Kept in the schema for compatibility if the CFPB restores them.
complaintUrl	string	Direct URL to the CFPB complaint detail record (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/search/detail/<complaintId>).

Sample output row (synthetic example)

{
  "complaintId": "99990001",
  "dateReceived": "2026-10-29",
  "dateSentToCompany": "2026-10-29",
  "company": "EXAMPLE NATIONAL BANK CORP.",
  "product": "Credit card",
  "subProduct": "General-purpose credit card or charge card",
  "issue": "Problem with a purchase shown on your statement",
  "subIssue": "Credit card company isn't resolving a dispute about a purchase on your statement",
  "state": "AZ",
  "zipCode": "85001",
  "submittedVia": "Web",
  "companyResponse": "Closed with explanation",
  "companyPublicResponse": "Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response",
  "timely": "Yes",
  "consumerDisputed": null,
  "tags": null,
  "narrative": null,
  "complaintUrl": "https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/search/detail/99990001"
}

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How pricing works

Pay per result. You only pay for rows returned.

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Data source and terms

• Official Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Consumer Complaint Database
• Source changes to know about: Per the CFPB API release notes, the CFPB has removed consumer complaint narratives from the database and removed the "Consumer disputed" and "Consumer consent provided" fields from its export. This Actor therefore returns narrative and consumerDisputed as null on every row, by disclosure, until and unless the CFPB restores them.
• API Endpoint: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/search/api/v1/
• Update Cadence: Updated daily by the CFPB after complaints are forwarded to the company and the company responds (or after 15 days).
• Terms of Use: U.S. Government public domain data published under CFPB Privacy & Open Data Policies. No personal consumer identifiers are published by the CFPB.

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Compliance

This Actor reads public complaint metadata published by the CFPB. The data is aggregated public reporting: it carries no consumer contact details, and the CFPB no longer publishes complaint narratives or the consumer-disputed field in this database. If the CFPB restores narratives in a future release, the output fields will remain gated by the includeNarrative input and the privacy rules in this README. Buyers remain responsible for complying with the TCPA, the National Do-Not-Call Registry, CAN-SPAM, the GDPR where it applies, and all state and local privacy and telemarketing law before contacting any party named in the data.

Limits, Troubleshooting and FAQ

• Why is narrative null even when includeNarrative is true? The CFPB has removed consumer complaint narratives from the database entirely (see its API release notes), so no narrative text is available from the source at present. The field stays in the output schema, null, for compatibility if the CFPB restores narratives.
• What happens when no complaints match my filters? The run succeeds with a Complete: 0 rows matched your filters status message that names the filters used and suggests how to widen them. Zero matches is not an error.
• Run limits: Each run scans at most 50 API pages (5,000 records) within a 240 second scan budget and at most 2 requests per second, per the CFPB API terms of use. Hitting the page cap or the scan budget ends the run with a PARTIAL: status message naming the cap.
• What does a PARTIAL: status message mean? If the upstream CFPB API experiences temporary latency or schema drift mid-run, the Actor preserves all validated rows already collected and sets a PARTIAL: status message with per-source counts. If this keeps happening, please open an issue on this actor's Issues tab and we'll fix it fast.
• Support: Found a problem or need a field? Open an issue on the Issues tab; we respond quickly.

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Changelog

v0.1.2 (2026-10-31)

• Red Team correction round: the core-column sentinel now runs on every page, not just page 1, so a field renamed on a later page fails loudly instead of shipping null-filled rows (verified by a page-2 rename fixture). A run with over 20 percent bad rows now fails and pushes nothing. Non-string source values in mapped text fields count as bad rows instead of being silently stringified. The charge-limit PARTIAL now merges any accumulated source-caused reasons, and maxItems rejects JSON booleans. Compliance section added.

v0.1.1 (2026-10-31)

• Fixed: zero matches now succeeds with a Complete: 0 rows matched your filters message instead of failing the run.
• Fixed: the Issues tab call to action now appears only on PARTIAL: runs with a source-caused reason, and the max-charge stop now reports as PARTIAL: with the rows pushed.
• Added: first-page core-column sentinel over every _source field the Actor depends on (filters, dedupe key, sort key); a missing or renamed field now fails loudly, naming the fields.
• Added: source staleness check using the API response metadata (is_data_stale), reported as a PARTIAL: reason when the CFPB flags its own data stale.
• Disclosed: the CFPB has removed complaint narratives and the "Consumer disputed" field from the database; narrative and consumerDisputed are null on every row until the CFPB restores them. Corrected the ZIP code description (full 5-digit code as published, not 3-digit masked).
• Added defaultRunOptions (max charge $50, 256 MB, 300 s) and a real exampleRunInput matching the input prefill.

v0.1 (2026-10-31)

• Initial release supporting CFPB Consumer Complaint Search API v1 with search_after cursor pagination, schema validation, and optional narrative extraction.