Primary Data Source

All data comes directly from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Consumer Complaint Database - a public dataset of consumer-submitted complaints against financial companies. PlainCollector focuses specifically on the debt collection industry segment.

• Database: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database
• Coverage period: 2013 through July 2026
• Total complaints: 1.14 million+ debt collection complaints
• Companies covered: 5,425 debt collection companies
• Geographic coverage: 56 U.S. states and territories

Data Vintage

The current database reflects CFPB complaint data through July 2026. The CFPB releases new complaint data on a rolling basis; we update when new data becomes available.

Processing Pipeline

1. Download: Raw complaint data is downloaded from the CFPB public API and bulk data download.
2. Filtering: Records are filtered to the "Debt collection" product category.
3. Aggregation: Complaints are grouped by company name with normalization to merge variant spellings of the same entity.
4. Metrics computation: For each company, we compute total complaint volume, trend (rising/stable/falling), timely response rate, and consumer dispute rate.
5. Grading: A composite score is calculated and mapped to a letter grade (A–F).
6. Database loading: Processed data is loaded into a structured SQLite database for all page types.

Reputation Grade Methodology

Letter grades (A through F) are assigned based on a composite score that weighs four factors:

• Complaint volume - Total complaints relative to company activity in the database
• Complaint trend - Whether complaints are rising, stable, or declining over the most recent 12 months
• Timely response rate - Percentage of complaints receiving a timely response from the company
• Consumer dispute rate - Percentage of responses that consumers disputed as inadequate

Grades are relative within the debt collection industry. An A-grade collector performs significantly better across all metrics than an F-grade collector in the same dataset. The grading scale is calibrated against the full population of 5,283 graded debt collection companies in our database, providing meaningful differentiation across the industry spectrum. Letter grades serve as a quick screening tool, consumers should review the underlying metrics for any company they are dealing with.

The reputation grade is PlainCollector's own transparent derived index, computed from the four weighted CFPB signals above - it is not an official CFPB rating, and the CFPB itself does not assign letter grades to collectors. The exact weights and computation are documented on this page; nothing about the grade is proprietary or undisclosed.

How the Source Agency Collects Data

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau operates a public complaint system where consumers can submit complaints about financial products and services through the CFPB website, by phone, by mail, or by fax. Each complaint is forwarded to the named company, which has 15 days to respond. The CFPB publishes complaints in its public database after the company responds or after 15 days, whichever comes first. Consumer narratives are published only with the consumer's consent. The CFPB does not independently verify the facts alleged in each complaint but does confirm that a commercial relationship exists between the consumer and company.

How to Read a Complaint Count

A complaint count reflects consumer-filed grievances, not a regulator's finding of wrongdoing, so a large total can signal a wide servicing footprint as much as poor conduct. Always weigh volume against how many states a collector operates in and how it answers the CFPB. The bureau forwards every complaint to the named company for a response, and the share a collector closes with an explanation or with monetary or non-monetary relief is often a sharper signal than the raw tally. Credit-reporting and identity-theft disputes behave differently from third-party collection complaints, so read the issue mix before drawing a conclusion. The figures shown on company pages come from the public CFPB Consumer Complaint Database and are refreshed roughly every thirty days; the bureau updates its own source daily, but individual complaints take sixty to ninety days to move through the full company-response cycle, which is why the most recent months can look lighter than they eventually settle.

Data Accuracy Commitment

PlainCollector presents CFPB complaint data without modification. Complaint counts, response rates, and trend calculations are computed directly from the published dataset. We do not editorialize about company quality beyond what the data directly shows through our grading methodology. If you find any data that appears incorrect, please contact us and we will verify against the CFPB source data.

Limitations

• Complaint data reflects consumer-submitted reports. The CFPB does not independently verify all facts in individual complaints.
• Company name normalization is imperfect, very similar names may be merged or separated incorrectly in some cases.
• Complaint volume depends partly on company size; large companies will naturally have more complaints than small collectors, regardless of actual performance.
• A company with many complaints is not necessarily violating law; a company with few complaints is not guaranteed to be problem-free.
• PlainCollector is not affiliated with the CFPB or any government agency.