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How to file a complaint

Before you start

AllBankComplaints.com does not accept complaints or fix problems with banks — this site only studies complaints that other people have already filed. Filing a complaint is a free, official government process run by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and it is completely separate from this site. The official starting point is consumerfinance.gov/complaint. Read through the steps below so you know what the official process involves before you begin.

The process

First, you submit your complaint to the CFPB with details about what happened. Next, the CFPB routes your complaint to the company involved, or to another agency if the CFPB is not the right one to handle it. The company then responds, typically within 15 days. Many complaints, with your consent and after personal information is removed, are later published in the CFPB's public Consumer Complaint Database, which is the same database this whole site is built on, and afterward there is a 60-day period where you can review the company's response and give feedback on it.

What to expect

CFPB says submitting a complaint online usually takes less than 10 minutes, while submitting by phone takes about 25 to 30 minutes. After you submit, the company typically responds within 15 days. That response window is the normal next step, so you do not need to resubmit through AllBankComplaints.com or anywhere else while you wait for the company to reply.

Where the complaint goes after that

If you give consent, and after the CFPB removes your personal information, your complaint may be added to the public Consumer Complaint Database. That can include the written narrative you submit describing what happened, without your personal details. This site's rankings, company pages, and word clouds are all built from that same public database. In that sense, filing a complaint is itself a way of contributing to the public record that helps other consumers see patterns.