Analyzing 6.9 Million Consumer Complaints with SQL & GCP

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) maintains a public database of consumer complaints about financial products and services. With 6.9 million records spanning 2011–2024, this dataset offers a rich picture of consumer financial disputes in the United States.

Dataset Overview

The dataset captures complaints across multiple financial products — credit reporting, mortgages, debt collection, credit cards, bank accounts, and more. Each record includes the complaint date, product category, issue type, company response, and geographic location.

Data Preparation with BigQuery

I loaded the dataset into Google Cloud BigQuery for analysis. The first step was understanding the schema and data quality:

-- Check record count and date range
SELECT COUNT(*) as total_records,
       MIN(date_received) as earliest,
       MAX(date_received) as latest
FROM `cfpb_complaints.consumer_complaints`;

Key Findings

1. Credit Reporting Dominates

The analysis revealed that credit reporting is the single largest complaint category, accounting for the highest volume of disputes — particularly around incorrect information appearing on credit reports.

2. Post-2020 Volume Spike

There's a clear post-2020 surge in complaint volumes across nearly all product categories, likely tied to economic disruptions from the pandemic and increased consumer financial stress.

3. Geographic Hotspots

Complaint density varies significantly by state and metro area, with higher volumes correlating with population centers and regions that experienced greater economic volatility.

4. Company Response Patterns

Analysis of company responses showed that while many complaints result in "Closed with explanation," there are meaningful differences in resolution rates across companies and product types.

Visualization in Looker Studio

I connected BigQuery to Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) to build an interactive dashboard that allows users to explore complaint trends by product, geography, and time period.