CFPB complaint data

Debt collection complaint statistics

A citable national summary of consumer complaints about debt collectors, computed from PlainCollector’s current CFPB Consumer Complaint Database snapshot. Complaint counts describe consumer filings, not proven violations, and they do not determine any legal right or deadline.

National CFPB snapshot

PlainCollector currently summarizes 1,139,236 CFPB debt-collection complaints across 5,425 named collectors; the largest recorded issue is “Attempts to collect debt not owed,” with 456,120 filings.

1,139,236
debt-collection complaints in this snapshot
5,425
named collectors
40%
share for top issue “Attempts to collect debt not owed”
1,054
collectors graded F (relative methodology)

These are consumer reports in a federal database, not findings that a collector violated the law.

Primary finding: PlainCollector currently summarizes 1,139,236 CFPB debt-collection complaints across 5,425 named collectors. The largest recorded issue is “Attempts to collect debt not owed,” with 456,120 filings. These are consumer reports in a federal database, not findings that a collector violated the law.

The current PlainCollector snapshot groups 1,139,236 consumer complaints about 5,425 debt collectors (5,278 graded A–F) from the multi-year U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Consumer Complaint Database; the live figures below are recalculated from that source snapshot and explained in the methodology.

Key findings

Each figure below is calculated from the same current database snapshot and can be cited with its source context.

  1. Finding 1

    1,139,236 CFPB debt-collection complaints are represented across 5,425 named collectors in this database.

  2. Finding 2

    “Attempts to collect debt not owed” is the most common recorded complaint issue, with 456,120 filings (40% of categorized complaints).

  3. Finding 3

    Texas has the largest raw total in this dataset, with 172,149 complaints filed by consumers there.

  4. Finding 4

    CCS Financial Services, Inc. has the largest raw complaint total among the F-grade collectors shown here, at 21,515 complaints.

  5. Finding 5

    1,054 collectors receive an F grade under PlainCollector’s documented, relative complaint-and-response methodology.

  6. Finding 6

    Among collectors with at least 50 complaints, the average timely-response rate is 90.6%.

Source: U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Consumer Complaint Database · 2013–2026 PlainCollector groups records about debt collection companies and recalculates the figures on this page from its current database snapshot.

How to read these figures

The CFPB records consumer complaints. A higher count can reflect company size, time in the dataset, and consumer reporting patterns as well as conduct. Use the figures to investigate a collector or topic, then review the underlying record and appropriate consumer-rights resources for your situation. Download the graded-collector snapshot as collector-complaint-statistics.csv (CC0) or read the methodology.