Key findings
- In 2025, 7.47% of complaints tagged "Older American" closed with monetary relief, against 0.40% of complaints with no tag and 1.92% of "Servicemember" complaints.
- The gap is not only product mix. Inside credit and prepaid cards it is 21.9% against 11.9%; in debt collection 1.18% against 0.14%; in money transfers and virtual currency 8.1% against 2.2%.
- It is not uniform: in mortgage, Older American complaints are slightly below untagged (1.4% against 1.8%), and Servicemember complaints in bank accounts are below untagged (8.5% against 10.6%).
- Among complaints with a narrative, 1.4% of Older American complaints are shared templates, against 53.5% of untagged ones.
- We cannot say why. The tags are self-reported and the data do not show what changed in the company's handling.
The CFPB database marks some complaints with a tag: "Older American" (age 62 or over) or "Servicemember" (including veterans and families). The data dictionary describes them as flags "based on what the consumer reported". They are rare: 95.5% of all complaints since 2011 carry no tag. In earlier pieces we showed that complaints exploded after 2023 and that the share ending in money fell. This investigation asks whether the people behind the two tags fared differently.
What We Measured
Every complaint is placed in one group: Older American, Servicemember, both, or no tag. We compare group sizes, product mix, the share closed with monetary relief (of closed complaints, as in our monetary relief investigation), template share, timeliness and geography, 2015 to 2025. The "both" group is small (8,005 complaints in 2025) and is left out of the charts. 2026 is partial and left out.
What the Data Shows
- Small groups, growing at different speeds. Older American complaints went from 14,542 (2015) to 29,467 (2025). Servicemember complaints went from 9,205 to 103,326. Untagged complaints went from 142,278 to 5,302,164. As a share of all complaints, tagged groups seem to vanish (Older American 8.6% to 0.5%), but that is credit reporting. Excluding credit reporting, Older American fell from 8.6% to 3.1% and Servicemember stayed flat (5.8% to 6.2%).
- Different product mix. In 2022 and 2025, both tagged groups were far less concentrated in credit reporting than untagged complaints and more in mortgage, credit and prepaid cards, bank accounts and debt collection. For the "both" group, credit reporting was 27% of complaints in 2022 against 78% for untagged.
- A widening gap in money outcomes. In 2015, monetary relief rates were similar: Older American 7.0%, no tag 6.3%, Servicemember 4.6%. From 2019 to 2024, the Older American rate stayed between 7.7% and 10.3%, while the untagged rate fell from 3.9% to 0.7%. In 2025: Older American 7.47%, Servicemember 1.92%, no tag 0.40%. Much of this is mix, which is why the next point matters.
Monetary relief rate (share of closed complaints) by tag group, 2015–2025. Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database; Kibbo Research analysis.
- Within products, the Older American gap mostly persists (2025). Credit and prepaid cards 21.9% against 11.9%. Bank accounts 14.0% against 10.6%. Money transfers 8.1% against 2.2%. Debt collection 1.18% against 0.14%. Mortgage 1.4% against 1.8%. In 2022 the pattern was similar, except that in bank accounts the two were close (17.7% against 16.0%) and in mortgage identical (2.8% against 2.9%).
Monetary relief rate by product family, Older American vs. no-tag complaints, 2025. Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database; Kibbo Research analysis.
- Servicemember is different. Within products the rate is often close to or below untagged: bank accounts 8.5% against 10.6%, mortgage 1.4% against 1.8%, credit and prepaid cards 14.8% against 11.9%, money transfers 3.5% against 2.2%. The higher overall rate comes mostly from the mix of products, not from higher rates within them.
- Almost no templates. Among 2025 complaints that have a narrative, 1.4% of Older American complaints are shared templates (223 of 16,271), 8.9% of Servicemember complaints (4,617 of 51,706), and 53.5% of untagged complaints (614,594 of 1,149,255). Older Americans are also more likely to have a published narrative at all: 55% against 22% for untagged.
- Response timeliness is high for all. Timely response in 2025: Older American 98.2%, Servicemember 98.5%, no tag 99.6%.
- Geography. Tagged complaints per 100,000 residents in 2025: Georgia 110.8, DC 84.5, Delaware 71.0, Nevada 69.8, Florida 68.4. These largely follow the states with the highest overall complaint rates, so we read nothing specific into them. Complaints from military addresses (AA, AE, AP) numbered 460 in 2025, 448 of them Servicemember.
What We Cannot Say
- Why Older American complaints end in money more often. It could be the kind of problem (fraud, unauthorised transactions), how the complaint is written, how companies handle it, or the sub-issue chosen. We did not test any of these.
- How the tags are assigned. The data dictionary says they are based on what the consumer reported; it does not say whether this is a checkbox or inferred, so we do not guess.
- That older consumers are treated better or worse. The data show outcome labels, not amounts, and a complaint is an allegation; responses are self-reported by companies and not verified by the CFPB.
- A causal effect of being tagged. These are comparisons between groups that differ in many ways.
Method and Limits
- Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, 2015 to 2025. Group totals reconcile with the official yearly counts in every year (2025: 5,442,962).
- Tag labels: "Older American", "Servicemember", "Older American, Servicemember" (both), empty (no tag). All appear from 2011 to 2026.
- Monetary relief rate = "Closed with monetary relief" ÷ closed complaints. Within-product figures use the five largest product families outside credit reporting.
- Template share uses shared_template_strict among complaints with a narrative (the same definition as the main investigation).
- Small groups: 2025 within-product cells for Older American range from 1,895 to 5,774 closed complaints; treat differences of a point or two as noise.
- Logged as Step 12 in our research log. No company data used.
Related
How to Cite
Kibbo Research (2026). Complaints Tagged "Older American" End in Money Back Far More Often, Even Within the Same Product. getkibbo.com. https://www.getkibbo.com/investigations/cfpb-older-americans-servicemembers
