Consumer Portfolio Services (CPS)

Complaints & Reviews on USAComplaints

USAComplaints currently maintains 332 historical complaints about Consumer Portfolio Services (CPS), published between 2004 and 2012. No approved complaints have been published on this site during the last three years. For a current reputation snapshot, see the independent sources below.

• Adding interest upon interestPublished Dec 2, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Cps garnished wages after court ordered financial hardshipPublished Nov 29, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Threatening, Mean, Trying to steal my Paid off VehiclePublished Oct 30, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Consumer portfolio services trying to make me paid infull on last paymentPublished Oct 3, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• CPS is a ripoff and needs to be suedPublished Oct 2, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• CPS Truck is paid off 60 payments. CPS purchased my loan before payoff and now say I still owe 2600.00 on itPublished Aug 10, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• CPS Bought my loan and ripped me off, even after I paid off my truck!Published Aug 4, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Harrassing phone calls and repo man knockin on my dooPublished Jul 12, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Harrassing phone calls and repo man knockin on my dooPublished Jul 12, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Cps do not use this companyPublished Jun 20, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• CPS car note care titlePublished May 19, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Sold my vehicle in an auction after a voluntary surrender for $7,700, and collecting my extended warantee balance $847, and say that I still owe them $2,036.81, when the payoff amount was $6,985.07Published May 14, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• FraudPublished May 2, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• CPS Unprofession, Hostile, & Disgraceful Representative!Published May 1, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Cps harassment, liars, unfairness, rude!Published Apr 27, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• CPS title not clearedPublished Apr 11, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Lied - Made up Invoices - Harassment and failure to report coreect paid off information to the credit bureausPublished Apr 3, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• BBB and Losing TitlePublished Mar 13, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Mr. Coker rude, uncooperative, defamation of characterPublished Feb 20, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation
• Never been treated so bad before!Published Feb 15, 2012 · Historical consumer allegation

Complaint Themes

Each tag reflects a complaint's single primary theme (not every angle it raised), and complaints outside any problem theme — a positive report, or one later retracted by its author — aren't tagged. Counts may total less than the full complaint count above.

Independent Sources

Shown for context — not merged with USAComplaints' own numbers.

Contacts & Login

• Official website: https://www.consumerportfolio.com/
• Customer contact line (CPS 'Contacts - Customers' page): (888) 469-4520 27 complaints mention this number
• Customer portal log in (payments, statements, payoff quote): https://customers.consumerportfolio.com/
• CPS Resolution Center (online complaint form): https://cpsresolution.consumerportfolio.com/
• Corporate telephone (registrant telephone on SEC filings): (949) 753-6800 24 complaints mention this number
• BBB-listed other phone: (844) 271-6473

Locations

Paying, disputing or falling behind on a Consumer Portfolio Services (CPS) auto loan? What to check

Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc. (CPS) says its business is "to purchase and service retail automobile contracts originated primarily by franchised automobile dealers" (Form 10-K for 2025). Because CPS buys contracts from dealers, your contract may have been signed at a car dealership and later bought by CPS, which then bills you and collects. If your problem is with the vehicle or the sale itself, start with your contract and the dealer; if it is about the payment, payoff, repossession or credit reporting, CPS is the servicer to contact. The 10-K also says CPS may be named as an assignee alongside dealers in lawsuits by consumers.

• Log in to see the account. CPS's home page lists what its customer portal (customers.consumerportfolio.com) offers: make an online payment, view and print a recent statement, get mailing instructions, view payment history, get a payoff quote, and see frequently asked questions. The portal sign-in page offers two ways to log in: account number plus the last four digits of the Social Security number, or the full Social Security number plus a 5-digit ZIP code. Only enter those details on the address CPS's own site links to.
• Phone. CPS's "Contacts - Customers" page lists a toll-free number, (888) 469-4520. The 10-K says customers can reach a collector or use an automated voice response system to check account information or make a payment, and can chat with a collector while logged in to the website.
• Ask for figures in writing. For a payoff, request a written payoff quote that states the date it is good through and the daily interest amount, and keep it. If the amount differs from your own records, ask for an itemized history of payments, fees and interest. (In the 2014 FTC case described below, the FTC alleged that CPS had misrepresented fees in payoff notices; CPS neither admitted nor denied the allegations. Those are allegations from 2014, not findings about your account.)
• If you are struggling to pay. The 10-K says CPS "in certain circumstances" grants one-month payment extensions for temporary cash-flow problems: generally no more than two in any 12 months and eight over the life of the contract, with the next due date and the maturity date advanced and, according to the 10-K, no reduction in interest rate or forgiveness of principal. A collector recommends and a supervisor approves. Ask what the extension will cost, whether any fee applies, and how it will be recorded, and get the agreement in writing. CPS's Resolution Center FAQ gives a shorter customer-facing instruction: "You should contact our Servicing Department at 888-469-4520 to explain your situation and discuss what options are available to you," and, on skipping or deferring a payment, "Your account may qualify for a payment extension."
• If repossession is threatened. The 10-K says a repossession decision "generally" occurs between the 60th and 90th day past due but can occur sooner or later, that a repossessed vehicle is sold at an unaffiliated auction, and that before the sale "the customer has the right to redeem the vehicle by paying the contract in full." CPS also says it may in some cases return the vehicle if the customer pays all, or what CPS deems a sufficient amount, of the past-due amount. The FTC's consumer page on vehicle repossession explains that in many states a lender can repossess without going to court or telling you first, but cannot "breach the peace"; that you may be able to buy the vehicle back or, in some states, reinstate the loan; and that you can be billed a "deficiency" if the sale price is below what you owe. The CFPB's consumer page on repossession adds that "You can ask your lender to provide a list of the repossession costs," that "Lenders must sell the car in a commercially reasonable manner," and that if the car is sold for more than what you owe, "you're entitled to receive the surplus." A deficiency calculation can be checked against the itemized costs and the sale price.
• If a collector you do not recognize contacts you. CPS's 10-K says it sometimes sells charged-off accounts to unaffiliated purchasers who specialize in collecting them. A debt collector's first communication must generally include validation information, and the CFPB says you have 30 days after receiving it to dispute the debt in writing, after which the collector must pause collection of the disputed amount until it responds. The CPS customer portal itself carries the notice: "The law requires us to inform you that this communication is from a debt collector."
• Credit reporting. The FTC says both the credit bureau and the business that supplied the information must correct information that is wrong or incomplete, and that you should contact both. On timing, the FTC says that "the credit bureau has 30 days to investigate it" however you filed the dispute, and that if the investigation does not resolve it "You can ask that a statement of the dispute be included in your file and in future reports." The largest share of CFPB complaints about CPS concern credit reporting (see the complaint record below).
• Complaint routes. (1) CPS's Resolution Center (cpsresolution.consumerportfolio.com) has an online complaint form; it says a CPS representative will review the complaint and, if requested, contact you within 5 business days. (2) The CFPB accepts complaints about auto loans and servicing at consumerfinance.gov/complaint or (855) 411-2372, and forwards them to the company. (3) Your state attorney general or state financial regulator; for example, California residents can submit a complaint to the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) at dfpi.ca.gov/submit-a-complaint/, where the DFPI page lists 1-866-275-2677 for help with its complaint form. (4) Keep a dated log of calls, letters and payments for any of these.

FTC and Justice Department consent judgment (2014), a closed DOJ inquiry, and an Oregon consent order (2015)

FTC / U.S. Department of Justice, 2014. On May 28, 2014 the Department of Justice filed, on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, a complaint and a proposed consent decree against CPS in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (United States v. Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc., No. 8:14-cv-00819). The FTC announced the settlement on May 29, 2014. According to the FTC, the complaint alleged that CPS misrepresented fees consumers owed in collection calls, monthly statements, pay-off notices and bankruptcy filings; improperly assessed and collected fees; unilaterally modified contracts, for example by increasing principal balances; failed to disclose the financial effects of loan extensions; disclosed debts to third parties; called consumers at work when not permitted or inconvenient; called third parties repeatedly with intent to harass; made unauthorized debits from bank accounts; falsely threatened car repossession; and manipulated Caller ID. The complaint also charged failures under the Fair Credit Reporting Act's Furnisher Rule to have reasonable written procedures and to investigate and respond to consumer disputes.

The court entered the Stipulated Order for Permanent Injunction and Civil Penalty Judgment on June 11, 2014 (signed by Judge Audrey B. Collins). In the order CPS "neither admits nor denies any of the allegations in the Complaint, except as specifically stated in this Order" (it admitted only the facts needed for jurisdiction). Its terms include a $2,000,000 civil penalty ($1,000,000 for alleged FDCPA violations and $1,000,000 for alleged Furnisher Rule violations); refunds or balance adjustments to affected accounts; a data integrity program with independent assessments; an independent third-party monitor that CPS must retain; and permanent injunctions on the practices above, including limits on calls to third parties and consumers' workplaces, a ban on unauthorized debits, and requirements to investigate credit-reporting disputes. The FTC said CPS would refund or adjust more than $3.5 million on 128,000 accounts and forbear collections on another 35,000 accounts. CPS's 10-K for 2014 reports that in September 2014 it made about $1.9 million of restitutionary payments and $1.6 million of account adjustments and paid the $2 million penalty in June 2014; its 10-K for 2015 says the customer payments, partly cash and partly credits, totaled about $3.5 million and that CPS retained an independent monitor.

Status. The CourtListener docket for the case (opened newest-first on 2026-09-30) shows the June 11, 2014 order (Doc. 9, "Case Terminated") as its newest entry and a last known filing date of June 11, 2014; CourtListener notes its entries come from PACER and RECAP and may not be up to date, and the FTC's case page was last updated May 29, 2014. Under the order, CPS must submit a compliance notice within 14 days of certain changes (such as a change in contact point or corporate structure) and keep certain records for twelve years after entry (to June 2026), and the independent data-integrity assessments run biennially for ten years. No termination or modification of the order was identified in the sources checked on 2026-09-30. CPS's 2025 10-K says: "The FTC has conducted and concluded an inquiry into our practices, and proposed remedial action against us in 2014, to which we consented."

Oregon, 2015. The Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities entered a Final Order Conditioning Consumer Finance License and Collection Agency Registration Entered by Consent on February 4, 2015 (No. CF-15-0003) when CPS applied for an Oregon consumer finance license. The order recites the 2014 FTC order, approves the license application with conditions, and provides that the license and collection agency registration "will be immediately revoked" if CPS violates the FTC order or specified Oregon or federal laws. In it CPS "neither admits nor denies the findings." The conditional license was stated to expire on December 31, 2015; the current status of CPS's Oregon license was not checked here.

Department of Justice inquiry (closed). CPS's 10-K for 2014 disclosed a January 2015 Justice Department subpoena about origination and securitization of subprime auto contracts since 2005 (an inquiry that several subprime securitizers received). CPS's 10-K for 2017 states that in February 2018 the DOJ advised CPS "that no further information is required of us and that no enforcement action is recommended."

CFPB. CPS's 10-K says the CFPB has supervisory and enforcement authority over non-banks such as CPS. A keyword search for "Consumer Portfolio" on the CFPB's enforcement-actions page returned no results on 2026-09-30, and no CFPB consent order or lawsuit against CPS was identified in the sources checked. Consumer complaints to the CFPB about CPS are recorded separately in the complaint record below.

Company background

Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc. is a California corporation that, in its words, was "incorporated and began our operations in March 1991" and is listed on Nasdaq under the symbol CPSS. Its 10-K for 2025 describes it as a specialty finance company that buys and services retail automobile contracts from dealers for customers with limited credit histories or past credit problems ("sub-prime customers"), funds the purchases mainly through securitizations, and has also originated some vehicle loans directly and acquired contracts in four merger and acquisition transactions (the 10-K names MFN Financial Corp. in 2002 and TFC Enterprises, Inc. in 2003 among its acquisitions). The company says it purchased about $1.64 billion of contracts in 2025 and that its managed portfolio was about $3.9 billion at December 31, 2025.

Locations. The 10-K states that CPS's principal executive offices are in Las Vegas, Nevada (3800 Howard Hughes Parkway, Suite 1400) and that its operating headquarters and most operational and administrative functions are in Irvine, California; it services contracts from California, Nevada, Virginia, Florida and Illinois branches (regional servicing centers in Chesapeake, Virginia; Maitland, Florida; and Oak Brook, Illinois). CPS's own Contacts page lists a P.O. Box in Irvine (P.O. Box 57071, Irvine, CA 92619) under "Headquarters". CPS's website footer shows "NMLS #96016". CPS's Online Privacy Policy (effective April 2025) tells readers with questions to write to "CPS, 19500 Jamboree Rd, Irvine, CA, Attn: Chief Legal / Privacy Officer."

Size. The company's website states that, through June 30, 2026, it had purchased over $25.9 billion of contracts, and that it serviced a managed portfolio of about $4.4 billion with approximately 243,000 active customers and 994 employees; the 10-K reports 928 employees at December 31, 2025. Its 10-K reports that at December 31, 2025, 26,608 contracts (12.5 percent of its gross servicing portfolio by balance) were delinquent and 7,462 contracts were in repossession, and that 99,830 contracts had at least one extension.

Ownership. CPS is publicly traded; no parent company is described in its 10-K. The beneficial-ownership table in its 10-K (shares outstanding March 4, 2026) lists Charles E. Bradley, Jr., its Chief Executive Officer since 1992, at 25.2 percent and Stephen H. Deckoff at 23.6 percent.

Recent company events. CPS's SEC filings in July and August 2026 report financing transactions: an amended and renewed warehouse credit facility that, per the July 14, 2026 Form 8-K, increased capacity from $335 million to a maximum of $508 million (July 9, 2026), a securitization of approximately $734.5 million of receivables (July 22, 2026) and the closing of an $80 million securitization of residual interests (announced August 18, 2026), a quarterly report for the period ended June 30, 2026 (filed August 7, 2026), and a Form 8-K filed August 25, 2026 that furnished an updated company presentation of 20 slides ("We are today making available one presentation consisting of 20 slides"). None of these describes a transfer or cancellation of individual customer accounts. No merger, acquisition, name change or reported data breach was identified in the sources checked on 2026-09-30; a search of the California Attorney General's data-breach list for "Consumer Portfolio" returned no entries.

Complaint record: USAComplaints, CFPB, BBB, Trustpilot and ComplaintsBoard, reported separately

Each source below covers a different population and period. None of the figures is added to or averaged with another. Snapshots are as displayed on 2026-09-30.

• USAComplaints: 332 approved posts on this site are linked to CPS, all dated between 2004 and 2012 (the largest years are 2008, 105 posts, and 2009, 88 posts). They were matched by the company name in the offender field or in the post text; posts about other organizations that also abbreviate their names as "CPS" were reviewed and not linked. These are consumers' own accounts and are allegations. Because they are all more than a decade old and predate the 2014 FTC order, they do not describe CPS's current practices. Keyword searches of the linked posts' text found the following subjects: calls to a workplace, references, family or neighbors (94 posts); repossession or repossession threats (92 posts); payoff, late-fee, fee or interest-rate disputes (51 posts); and credit-reporting complaints (19 posts). A post can appear in more than one group.
• CFPB Consumer Complaint Database (company name "Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc."): 3,895 complaints received from June 20, 2012 to September 24, 2026, of which 978 were received in the last 12 months (since September 30, 2025). By product, using the CFPB's product names: credit reporting or other personal consumer reports, 1,376; vehicle loan or lease, 843; credit reporting, credit repair services or other personal consumer reports (an earlier product name), 708; debt collection, 707; consumer loan, 230. Top issues: improper use of your report, 1,219; incorrect information on your report, 681; managing the loan or lease, 387; attempts to collect debt not owed, 247; problem with a company's investigation into an existing problem, 157; repossession, 154; took or threatened to take negative or legal action, 131; struggling to pay your loan, 128. In the last 12 months the largest product groups were credit reporting (509), vehicle loan or lease (241) and debt collection (223), and the top issues were improper use of your report (252), incorrect information on your report (194) and repossession (87). Top states by complaints: Texas 395, Georgia 340, California 276, Florida 267, Illinois 260, Pennsylvania 238. CPS's responses were "closed with explanation" for 3,865 complaints, "closed with monetary relief" for 19 and "closed with non-monetary relief" for 11; 3,883 responses were timely and 12 were not. The CFPB does not verify the facts in complaints.
• BBB (BBB profile for Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc., Las Vegas, NV): BBB Accredited (accreditation date in BBB's data: February 23, 2018), BBB rating A+; BBB's file opened May 18, 2017 and its business-start date is March 8, 1991. The Complaints tab shows 254 complaints in the last 3 years and 79 closed in the last 12 months. Separately, BBB's customer-review score is 1.13 out of 5 ("Average of 55 Customer Reviews"). The rating letter, the complaint counts and the review score are separate BBB measures. A search of BBB for the company name near Irvine, CA did not return a separate CPS listing.
• Trustpilot (consumerportfolio.com): 1.7 out of 5 from 18 reviews; the profile is unclaimed, and Trustpilot notes that the company has "no history of asking for reviews" and that reviews "may not be representative."
• ComplaintsBoard (page updated September 26, 2026): 105 complaints and no reviews, 64 complaints marked resolved.

Lawsuits, class actions and the 2014 federal case

United States v. Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc. (C.D. Cal., No. 8:14-cv-00819-ABC-RNB): the government case described above, resolved by the stipulated order entered June 11, 2014.

Class actions. CPS's annual reports mention consumer class actions in general terms. The 10-K for 2014 says CPS was "currently defending two such purported class actions, one of which has been settled by agreement with the plaintiffs" subject to court approval; the 10-K for 2015 says one class action had been settled, the court had approved the settlement, and an objecting class member had appealed; the 10-K for 2016 says the class action "has been settled by agreement with the plaintiffs and with the approval of the court" and that CPS performed its obligations after year-end. These reports do not name the case, and the settlement was not identified on a court docket in the sources checked, so no claim deadline, class definition or administrator is stated here. CPS's 2025 10-K and its report for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (Note 8) say that consumers "can and do initiate lawsuits against us alleging violations of law applicable to collection of receivables," that such lawsuits "sometimes allege that resolution as a class action is appropriate," that CPS contests or settles them "for immaterial amounts" depending on the case, and that CPS "is not currently a party to any such material proceedings." Those are CPS's statements.

Connecticut deficiency-notice cross-claim (as disclosed by CPS). CPS's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2025 (filed November 10, 2025) says that, after CPS filed a complaint for a deficiency judgment in the Superior Court at Waterbury, Connecticut, the defendant filed a cross-claim on October 16, 2019 alleging that CPS's deficiency notices were not compliant with Connecticut law and seeking relief on behalf of a class of Connecticut obligors whose vehicles CPS had repossessed. CPS says the defendant's contract provided for individual arbitration only, that the court denied CPS's motion to compel arbitration in August 2021 "without opinion," that a class-certification motion was filed in April 2024, and that "Prior to the motion being ruled upon, summary judgment was granted in our favor, disposing of the claims against CPS." An appeal of that ruling was filed on October 25, 2024 and CPS filed a cross appeal of the arbitration denial on October 31, 2024. These are the cross-claimant's allegations as described by CPS, not findings. CPS's 10-K for 2025 (filed March 16, 2026) and its 10-Qs for the quarters ended March 31 and June 30, 2026 do not describe this matter; they say CPS "is not currently a party to any such material proceedings." The filings do not give the case caption or docket number, and its current appellate status was not identified in the sources checked on 2026-09-30.

Court dockets. A CourtListener search on 2026-09-30 for dockets with the case name "Consumer Portfolio Services" (caseName:"Consumer Portfolio Services") returned 417 results; the captions of the most recent filings (January to September 2026) are individually captioned cases in federal district and bankruptcy courts in many states, and their claims were not reviewed. A narrower search on the same site for the case name plus class-action terms returned dockets including Franco v. Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc. (N.D. Cal., No. 3:13-cv-01364, filed March 25, 2013), Hicks v. Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc. (C.D. Cal., No. 8:12-cv-01031, filed June 22, 2012), Clark v. Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc. (C.D. Cal., No. 8:12-cv-01926, filed November 5, 2012), Van Horn v. Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc. (C.D. Cal., No. 8:15-cv-01236, filed August 4, 2015) and Martens v. Consumer Portfolio Services Inc (E.D. Wis., No. 2:11-cv-01170, filed December 27, 2011); for these, only the captions and filing dates were read, and their claims and outcomes are not stated here.

Is Consumer Portfolio Services (CPS) Legitimate?

Consumer Portfolio Services, Inc. is a California corporation that files annual and quarterly reports with the SEC (10-K for 2025 filed March 16, 2026; 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 filed August 7, 2026) and is listed on Nasdaq as CPSS. Its website lists NMLS #96016 and the company states it has been operating since 1991. BBB lists it as BBB Accredited with an A+ rating, alongside 254 complaints in three years and a 1.13 out of 5 customer-review score; the CFPB database holds 3,895 complaints about it. In 2014 CPS consented, without admitting or denying the FTC's allegations, to a federal order that included a $2 million civil penalty and consumer refunds or adjustments; a 2015 Oregon license order recites that order. This page gives CPS no rating or score of its own; the sources above are reported so readers can weigh them.

Court & Public Records

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