CFPB Consumer Complaint Trend Watch Scraper

Fintech, banking, CX, and compliance teams use this actor to monitor public CFPB Consumer Complaint Database trends. Provide company, product, issue, state, and keyword watch feeds. The actor returns source-linked complaint trend digest rows with consumer-submitted-data guardrails and no individual enrichment.

Store Quickstart

{
  "feeds": [
    {
      "id": "bank-overdraft",
      "name": "Bank overdraft complaints",
      "products": "Checking or savings account",
      "issues": "Problem with overdraft",
      "keywords": "overdraft,fee"
    }
  ],
  "watchTerms": "overdraft,fee,closed account",
  "datasetMode": "action_needed",
  "notifyOnNoNew": false
}

Input Examples

{
  "feeds": [
    {
      "id": "credit-reporting",
      "products": "Credit reporting or other personal consumer reports",
      "keywords": "incorrect information,dispute"
    }
  ],
  "lookbackDays": 30
}

{
  "feeds": [
    {
      "id": "company-watch",
      "companies": "Example Financial Inc.",
      "keywords": "transfer,account closed,refund"
    }
  ],
  "datasetMode": "new_only"
}

{
  "feeds": [
    {
      "id": "state-watch",
      "products": "Mortgage",
      "states": "CA,TX,NY",
      "keywords": "servicing,escrow"
    }
  ],
  "delivery": "webhook",
  "webhookUrl": "https://example.com/cfpb-webhook"
}

Sample Output

{
  "actorName": "cfpb-consumer-complaint-trend-watch-scraper",
  "rowType": "cfpb_digest",
  "feedId": "bank-overdraft",
  "feedName": "Bank overdraft complaints",
  "checkedAt": "2026-05-07T00:00:00.000Z",
  "status": "action_needed",
  "newDocCount": 1,
  "totalDocCount": 1,
  "changedSinceLastRun": true,
  "actionNeeded": true,
  "reviewNote": "Review public complaint records matching watch terms: overdraft. Treat records as consumer-submitted signals.",
  "signalTags": ["consumer_submitted", "not_agency_verified", "new_document", "watch_term_hit"],
  "watchTermHits": [
    {
      "term": "overdraft",
      "docNumber": "123456",
      "title": "Example Bank | Checking or savings account | Problem with overdraft",
      "docType": "CONSUMER_COMPLAINT",
      "primaryAgency": "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau",
      "publicationDate": "2026-05-01T00:00:00.000Z",
      "htmlUrl": "https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/consumer-complaints/"
    }
  ],
  "documents": [
    {
      "complaintId": "123456",
      "consumerSubmitted": true,
      "agencyVerified": false,
      "individualEnrichment": false,
      "product": "Checking or savings account",
      "issue": "Problem with overdraft",
      "company": "Example Bank",
      "limitations": ["Complaint data is consumer-submitted and not a CFPB finding that wrongdoing occurred."]
    }
  ]
}

Output Fields

• actorName, rowType: stable canary and downstream routing fields; rowType is cfpb_digest.
• feedId, feedName, checkedAt: watch target identity and run timestamp.
• status: stable, watch, action_needed, or error.
• documents[].complaintId: CFPB public complaint identifier.
• documents[].consumerSubmitted: always true for this source class.
• documents[].agencyVerified: false; do not treat complaint rows as findings of wrongdoing.
• documents[].individualEnrichment: false; the actor must not enrich, profile, or contact individual consumers.

Pricing And No-Change Billing

Private Phase 8.6 build. Do not publish or count revenue until this actor's publication gate passes: active PPE pricing, chargedCount proof, no-change billing proof, source compliance, live canary, and demand gate.

Planned PPE shape, still private until active pricing is verified on Apify:

• apify-actor-start: $0.00005
• cfpb-trend-alert: $0.05
• cfpb-digest: $0.30
• cfpb-report: $2.50 (reserved for future bundled report mode)

Runtime-charged event names are cfpb-trend-alert for action-needed/watch-term rows and cfpb-digest for non-alert digest rows. Delivery must receive Apify chargedCount >= 1 before a billable row is considered delivered.

Recurring no-change polls should use datasetMode="action_needed" or new_only and notifyOnNoNew=false. Dataset and webhook delivery both push billable rows through Apify Actor.pushData(row, eventName) before delivery; webhook users do not bypass PPE billing.

Compliance Guardrails

• CFPB complaint rows are consumer-submitted and are not CFPB findings that a company violated the law.
• Do not infer wrongdoing, legal liability, credit risk, or consumer harm from a row count alone.
• Do not enrich, identify, contact, or profile individual consumers.
• Do not market this as a complaint submission tool.
• Do not use official CFPB seals or imply agency endorsement.

See Also

• ecfr-cfr-section-change-watch-scraper for CFR section monitoring.
• website-content-extractor for public page extraction after its own billing and publication gates pass.