Rebecca Sheppard focuses on untangling different folks’s monetary messes. However for practically a yr, the Colorado accountant has been unable to repair a obtrusive error on her personal credit score report.
Her credit score rating plunged roughly 85 factors due to a $240,000 scholar mortgage debt she doesn’t owe. She repeatedly requested the nation’s massive three credit score reporting corporations to right the error, submitting documentation exhibiting the debt belonged to her ex-husband. Even the mortgage’s account supervisor confirmed she wasn’t accountable.
Nonetheless, the credit score bureaus refused to take away it, jeopardizing her plans to maneuver together with her disabled father right into a extra accessible dwelling. “There’s no manner on this planet I may qualify for the acquisition,” she stated.
Sheppard ought to have been capable of rely on the federal authorities to stress the credit score bureaus to take her dispute severely. For years, the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau wielded the specter of fines and lawsuits to make corporations repair errors and have interaction with customers. Beneath the Biden administration, a rigorous supporter of the company, customers’ charges of aid for such complaints rose to about 10 occasions as excessive as in 2020.
However Sheppard wanted assist beneath the Trump administration, which has drastically curtailed the CFPB’s mission, together with its policing of credit score bureaus. With the company weakened, two of the three main credit score bureaus, TransUnion and Experian, have sharply lowered the share of client complaints they resolved in clients’ favor, in line with a ProPublica evaluation of federal criticism information.
TransUnion’s aid fee, which had remained comparatively regular for a number of years, started plunging in the summertime of 2025. By October it was offering aid roughly half as typically.
Joel Jacobs/ProPublica
Experian’s drop was much more dramatic. The corporate resolved practically 20% of complaints in customers’ favor in 2024. Final yr, that determine fell to lower than 1%.
Joel Jacobs/ProPublica
The third main bureau, Equifax, didn’t present the same decline. Simply days earlier than President Donald Trump was inaugurated, the corporate entered right into a consent order with the CFPB over poor dispute and investigation practices. Beneath the settlement, the corporate dedicated to reforms and ongoing oversight.
Equifax’s client aid principally stored up with complaints.
Joel Jacobs/ProPublica
The timing of the drops at TransUnion and Experian coincides with the Trump administration’s dismantling of the CFPB.
In February 2025, Russell Vought, a White Home official who oversaw sweeping cuts throughout federal companies, took management of the CFPB as appearing director. He rapidly ordered a cease to practically all company work. Beneath his management, the CFPB has tried to fireside most of its workers, frozen investigations and dropped enforcement actions, together with in opposition to TransUnion. One of many CFPB’s new attorneys main the pullback on enforcement represented Experian for years earlier than becoming a member of the administration.
The credit score bureaus “wish to do as little as doable,” stated Chi Chi Wu, director of client reporting on the Nationwide Shopper Regulation Heart, which is a plaintiff in a lawsuit that has thus far blocked a few of the administration’s dismantling efforts.
“The factor that’s making them do any form of effort is a lawsuit or a regulator, and now we don’t have the regulator,” Wu stated.
In statements to ProPublica, the credit score bureaus stated that many complaints are illegitimate, together with a big quantity filed by credit score restore organizations that cost clients to problem damaging data on their experiences. Experian stated in an announcement that a few of these corporations “mislead customers into believing they’ll take away correct data,” including that it investigates “all legit” complaints. The corporate didn’t reply to particular questions on its decline in aid.
Third events are allowed to submit complaints on behalf of customers in the event that they disclose their involvement and get permission. Federal regulators have acknowledged that dangerous actors exist, however the CFPB and a Home subcommittee discovered that the credit score bureaus’ techniques for figuring out third-party involvement have been overly broad and dismissed legit considerations.
Requested in regards to the decline in aid, TransUnion stated it not too long ago modified its processes to deal with third-party complaints and now redirects these with inadequate documentation to “a extra applicable” inside channel for evaluation.
For years, the CFPB’s criticism system has served as a public intermediary: forwarding client points to the bureaus, requiring responses and publishing information exhibiting how corporations dealt with them.
However the corporations have efficiently lobbied the Trump administration to start out steering some customers away from the clear course of and towards their inside techniques.
A CFPB spokesperson stated the criticism system was inundated with submissions from bots and third-party credit score restore corporations, and the company was working to handle that so legit customers can extra successfully get assist. The company didn’t reply to written questions in regards to the decline in aid or enforcement.
What number of customers get assist — or don’t — when utilizing the credit score bureaus’ inside techniques shouldn’t be public. However CFPB information reveals that since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, greater than 2.7 million credit score reporting complaints submitted to the CFPB have gone with out aid, leaving some folks liable to being denied loans, housing or employment and topic to greater charges from insurers and lenders.
One anonymized criticism got here from a Texan who stated a fraudulent account remained on their credit score report regardless of their disputes. “I’ve an essential deal that I want to finish that’s essential for the security and survival of my household,” the particular person wrote. CFPB information present that Equifax offered aid, whereas TransUnion and Experian didn’t.
Additionally amongst those that complained was an Air Power veteran and elections organizer in Arkansas who stated the bureaus refused to revive his erroneously deleted mortgage historical past. ProPublica interviewed the person, Kwami Abdul-Bey, who stated the error left him unable to refinance his dwelling or automobile even after going to a number of lenders.
“Every time they inform me that I don’t have sufficient years of credit score. I used to be paying on that mortgage for a decade earlier than that commerce line disappeared,” he stated.
After ProPublica contacted his mortgage servicer, Wells Fargo, the corporate reached out to Abdul-Bey to apologize for his state of affairs and stated it could examine.
Equifax and Experian didn’t reply to questions on particular person customers who filed complaints. TransUnion declined to touch upon particular person conditions however stated in an announcement that the corporate “has a number of sources accessible to customers to assist with each step of the dispute course of.”
On a regular basis People can’t choose out of getting their monetary information collected and bought by credit score bureaus. Congress handed the Honest Credit score Reporting Act in 1970, giving customers the fitting to flag errors. However extra not too long ago, the credit score bureaus have employed a restricted variety of staff — typically abroad — to deal with monumental volumes of investigations.
TransUnion, for instance, had 171 staff responding to client disputes overlaying 38 million line objects in 2021. A TransUnion spokesperson stated in an e mail that the corporate has since added staffing however wouldn’t present a quantity.
“These ‘investigators,’ they’ve a stack of disputes like a mile excessive that they should undergo each day,” stated Liam Hayden, a Chicago lawyer who has represented customers in credit score reporting circumstances. “An actual, genuine investigation prices cash.”
After the 2008 monetary disaster, Congress created the CFPB to guard People from unfair and abusive practices. By 2015, the large three credit score bureaus had grow to be probably the most complained about corporations within the company’s criticism system.
Credit score Reporting Complaints In regards to the Three Main Credit score Bureaus Have Surged in Latest Years
Complaints about Equifax, TransUnion and Experian vastly outnumber all different complaints, for issues comparable to bank cards, loans or debt assortment.
Joel Jacobs/ProPublica
In 2022, figuring out a scarcity of responsiveness by the credit score bureaus to client points, the CFPB launched a vital report, alongside steerage on how the businesses ought to handle “shoddy investigation practices.” Over the following few years, aid charges rose as the businesses offered extra individualized responses to complaints filed via the company.
Bulletins on the CFPB’s web site present the company has introduced a dozen enforcement actions in opposition to client reporting corporations since 2015.
Simply days earlier than Trump took workplace, the CFPB introduced an enforcement motion in opposition to Equifax. The corporate settled, agreeing to pay $15 million and function beneath a legally binding consent order designed to repair its dispute course of.
Among the many reforms, the corporate agreed to enhance its internet interface for submitting disputes, keep away from counting on defective data from collectors and never routinely dismiss repeated considerations from the identical client. The settlement didn’t particularly point out the corporate’s dealing with of CFPB complaints. Equifax was given a few yr to place most of the modifications in place and has to stay compliant for 5 years after.
ProPublica discovered that the company had authorised the same motion in opposition to TransUnion in July 2024, nevertheless it was by no means introduced. Settlement talks ended shortly after the change in administration.
“Given current modifications in CFPB management, our engagement with the company on this matter has paused,” TransUnion wrote in a February 2025 Securities and Trade Fee submitting. “We can’t present an estimate of when, or if, such engagement will resume.”
That month, the CFPB dropped a lawsuit in opposition to TransUnion and a former firm government over alleged misleading practices. TransUnion denied the allegations, calling them “meritless.” The CFPB later ended an settlement meant to repair the corporate’s failure to promptly place and take away credit score freezes.
The CFPB sued Experian shortly earlier than the administration modified, alleging failures in its dispute dealing with processes. Experian has denied the allegations in court docket, known as the swimsuit “fully with out benefit” and stated the corporate investigates “each client dispute completely.”
The Experian case stays lively. A CFPB spokesperson stated that Victoria Dorfman, the brand new senior authorized adviser who beforehand represented Experian, has recused herself from the case.
In a July public remark letter, Experian argued it shouldn’t be required to answer particular person CFPB complaints and that the overwhelming majority of these filed not too long ago are illegitimate. The {industry}’s lobbying arm, the Shopper Information Business Affiliation, has urged the CFPB to route extra customers away from the criticism system and make the remaining complaints non-public.
This yr, only a week after receiving a letter from the lobbying group, the CFPB added three notices for customers to click on via earlier than submitting a public criticism, warning them that their requests could be ignored in the event that they haven’t already disputed points immediately with credit score bureaus — a typical the company beforehand stated corporations can’t reliably confirm.
In an announcement to ProPublica, the CDIA highlighted {that a} discover instructing customers to first dispute immediately had been current within the CFPB criticism portal briefly round 2012. The brand new modifications are “crucial to handle the widespread misuse of the portal” that divert sources away from legit considerations, the group stated.
However client advocates contend that the industry-friendly modifications current much more obstacles for customers like Sheppard who’re making an attempt to get their points resolved.
She twice disputed the scholar mortgage error immediately with the bureaus. Then in June, she turned to the CFPB. All three responded that that they had verified that the debt was hers with out addressing documentation she offered on the contrary.
In December, she despatched one other dispute by licensed mail, however TransUnion replied with a postcard stating it believed the submission had not come from her.
“They didn’t even strive,” Sheppard stated. “The truth that they despatched that little postcard was simply ridiculous.”
TransUnion didn’t present a response concerning Sheppard’s state of affairs however stated in an announcement that it “can’t change data furnished to us absent enough documentation and clear instruction from the buyer.”
In her mailed dispute, Sheppard included a letter she obtained from the mortgage account supervisor stating that she was not answerable for the debt.
With no different choices, Sheppard sued the three credit score bureaus in January. The businesses haven’t but responded in court docket.
With no functioning CFPB, enforcement might fall to state attorneys common and personal lawsuits. The Federal Commerce Fee can deliver circumstances however lacks the authority to conduct routine supervision.
A future with no CFPB will go away customers more and more trapped, stated Hayden, the Chicago lawyer. “In 5 years, the decision of client disputes goes to be worse, credit score experiences are going to be worse and it’s going to be more durable for people to repair them, assured.”
