Sponsor
Garland H. Barr
Representative · R-KY
Representative · R-KY
The bill aims to reduce fraud and administrative burden for businesses by adding identity, notice, and confidentiality rules for complaints, but those same rules risk deterring or delaying legitimate complaints and reducing public transparency and third‑party advocacy.
Taxpayers: Filers must verify identity and attest under penalty of perjury, which should reduce unauthorized or fraudulent complaints.
Small-business-owners: Covered persons can close duplicative, frivolous, or unauthorized complaints and may not have to respond if they weren't notified within 60 days, lowering administrative burden and compliance costs.
Taxpayers/Public data users: The bill preserves the ability to publish aggregated, de-identified complaint data so trends and systemic issues remain analyzable.
Low-income individuals: Requiring ID verification and penalty-of-perjury attestations may deter or delay legitimate complaints from people who lack standard identification.
Consumers: The requirement to show a covered person was informed 60 days before filing could bar timely complaints and slow dispute resolution.
Taxpayers/Public oversight: Making narrative complaint and response content confidential limits public scrutiny of individual complaints and reduces transparency into company conduct.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires identity attestation and verification for CFPB complaints, lets firms close certain complaints, and makes complaint narratives confidential while allowing de-identified aggregates.
Official title: To amend the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010 to require the attestation of certain information as part of the consumer complaint submission process, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 17, 2026 by Garland H. Barr · Last progress February 17, 2026
Requires people who submit consumer complaints to the CFPB to verify their identity and attest under penalty of perjury that the complaint is true and authorized. Gives entities required to respond (covered persons) the ability to close certain complaints that are duplicative, frivolous, unauthorized, or filed without prior notice, and makes the narrative content of complaints and responses confidential while allowing the Bureau to publish aggregated, de-identified data and trends. Also defines acceptable identity documents, requires the Bureau to notify covered persons and consumers when an unauthorized filing is suspected, and sets a 60-day pre-filing notice requirement to the covered person as a condition for many complaints to remain open.