U.S. Sens. Andy Kim (D-NJ) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are seeking answers from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) about recent updates to the CFPB Consumer Complaint Portal.
The senators said the new portal has made it more difficult for consumers to submit complaints. They also expressed concern that the changes were made at the urging and to the benefit of credit reporting companies, and at the cost of consumers.
“Instead of spending time strengthening the CFPB – an agency that has served as a financial watchdog and returned over $21 billion to consumers cheated by big banks and corporations—you and President Trump have spent the last year and a half finding ways to gut the agency’s enforcement capabilities, hack away at its workforce, and slash enforcement activity. Your decision to roll out an updated consumer complaint system that discourages consumers from seeking assistance from the agency is yet another step in this troubling trend,” wrote the Senators to Russell Vought, acting director of the CFPB.
The senators point out that the CFPB is statutorily obligated to collect, monitor, and respond to consumer complaints regarding financial products and services. And credit reporting-related complaints are the biggest source of complaints to the agency, accounting for 85 percent of all complaints reported to the CFPB. In 2025 alone, the CFPB received more than 5.8 million complaints about credit reporting or other consumer reporting—an over 100 percent uptick from the prior year.
“I have real concerns about this overhaul,” Kim said at a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing. “Why is this happening? Why is this fundamental tool that has helped so many Americans something that you’ve put more restrictions on top of… I’ve been hearing from so many who have used this in the past and are now saying ‘why has this been changed.’”
The senators requested answers to a series of questions by July 30.