CFPB Consumer Financial Complaints Scraper

Extract consumer complaint data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) database — the largest public repository of consumer financial complaints in the United States. This Actor wraps the official CFPB Complaint Database API to deliver structured data on 13.8 million+ complaints filed against banks, lenders, debt collectors, credit bureaus, and financial companies since 2011.

CFPB complaint data is essential for financial compliance monitoring, competitive intelligence, litigation research, risk analysis, and fintech market research. Every complaint includes the company name, product type, issue description, company response, and geographic data. This Actor makes that data instantly accessible in JSON, CSV, or Excel format.

Key Features

Feature	Description
13.8M+ complaints	Every consumer financial complaint since 2011
Multi-field search	Search by company, product, state, date range, or free text
17 fields per record	Company, product, issue, response, narrative, location, and more
Pagination built-in	Automatically handles cursor-based pagination
No authentication	Uses the free public CFPB API — no API key needed

What Data Can You Extract?

Field	Description
complaintId	Unique CFPB complaint identifier
dateReceived	Date complaint was received
product	Financial product (mortgage, credit card, debt collection, etc.)
subProduct	Specific product subcategory
issue	Primary complaint issue
subIssue	Specific issue detail
company	Company the complaint was filed against
companyResponse	How the company responded
companyPublicResponse	Company's public-facing response
state	Consumer's state
zipCode	Consumer's ZIP code
submittedVia	How the complaint was submitted (Web, Phone, etc.)
timely	Whether company responded on time
consumerDisputed	Whether the consumer disputed the response
narrative	Full complaint narrative text (when available)
tags	Special tags (e.g., Older American, Servicemember)
dateSentToCompany	Date CFPB forwarded the complaint
complaintUrl	Direct link to the complaint on CFPB website

How to Scrape CFPB Complaint Data

1. Go to this Actor's page on the Apify Store
2. Click "Start" to open the input form
3. Set your filters:
   • Enter a Company name (e.g., Wells Fargo, Bank of America)
   • Select a Product type (e.g., Mortgage, Credit card)
   • Enter a State code (e.g., CA, NY) — or leave blank for all states
   • Set a Date From and Date To range (format: YYYY-MM-DD)
   • Enter Search Text for free-text search across complaint narratives
   • Set Max Results (default: 100)
4. Click "Start" to run the Actor
5. Download your data in JSON, CSV, or Excel format from the Dataset tab

Input Example

{
    "company": "Wells Fargo",
    "product": "Mortgage",
    "state": "CA",
    "dateFrom": "2024-01-01",
    "maxResults": 100
}

Output Example

{
    "complaintId": "19575864",
    "dateReceived": "2026-02-18T12:00:00-05:00",
    "product": "Checking or savings account",
    "subProduct": "Checking account",
    "issue": "Problem with a lender or other company charging your account",
    "subIssue": "Transaction was not authorized",
    "company": "WELLS FARGO & COMPANY",
    "companyResponse": "Closed with explanation",
    "companyPublicResponse": null,
    "state": "CA",
    "zipCode": "90255",
    "submittedVia": "Web",
    "timely": "Yes",
    "consumerDisputed": "N/A",
    "narrative": "I was contacted about a remote position...",
    "tags": null,
    "dateSentToCompany": "2026-02-18T12:00:00-05:00",
    "complaintUrl": "https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/search/detail/19575864"
}

Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-result pricing:

Event	Price
Actor start	$0.00005
Per result	$0.002

The CFPB API is free and public. You only pay for Apify compute resources plus the per-result fee above. A typical run of 100 complaints costs approximately $0.20 in Actor fees plus minimal compute costs.

Use Cases

• Compliance Monitoring: Track complaint trends against your company or competitors over time
• Litigation Research: Find complaint patterns for class-action or regulatory investigations
• Competitive Intelligence: Compare complaint volumes and resolution rates across banks and lenders
• Risk Analysis: Assess financial company risk based on complaint history and response patterns
• Fintech Market Research: Identify pain points in traditional banking for product development
• Journalism & Advocacy: Investigate consumer financial abuse patterns and corporate behavior

Integrations

Connect this Actor to your existing workflows:

• Export to Google Sheets for collaborative analysis
• Send results to Slack or email for automated alerts
• Feed into Zapier, Make, or n8n for custom automation
• Use the Apify API to integrate directly with your application

FAQ

Q: How current is the data? A: The CFPB database is updated daily. Complaints typically appear within 15 days of being sent to the company for response.

Q: Can I get complaint narratives? A: Yes, when consumers opt in to share their narrative, it's included in the narrative field. Not all complaints have narratives.

Q: What products are covered? A: Mortgages, credit cards, checking/savings accounts, student loans, auto loans, personal loans, credit reporting, debt collection, money transfers, and more.

Legal Disclaimer

This Actor accesses publicly available data from the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database API, a free public service provided by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The data is in the public domain and freely available for any use.

This Actor does not bypass any authentication, does not violate any terms of service, and respects rate limits. The Actor is provided as-is without warranty. Users are responsible for ensuring their use of the data complies with applicable laws and regulations.

For questions or support, please open an issue on this Actor's page.