How to File a Complaint With the Texas Attorney General

One of the primary duties of the Office of the Attorney General in Texas is handling complaints about scams or fraud. This division of the office is designed to handle complaints from consumers against businesses. Consumers can file a complaint with the Attorney General of Texas using the OAG online complaint form, and the OAG will work with you to try and resolve the issue.

The website of the Attorney General of Texas is divided into various divisions covering its range of responsibilities. On the website, you can find the AG consumer complaint form as well as links to information about other departments that handle concerns including health, insurance and employment.

The Texas OAG contact information can be found on its website:

• OAG Consumer protection phone number: 800-621-0508.
• OAG Crime Victims phone number: 800-983-993.
• General Calls to the OAG: 512-463-2100.

Here's what you should know when addresing your issues:

• Filing a Consumer Protection Complaint
• Filing a complaint about Health Care
• Filing a complaint about Financial Scams
• Filing a complaint about Insurance
• Filing a complaint about Employment
• How to apply for Unemployment
• How to file a complaint with the Texas Attorney General?
• How effective is it to file a complaint with OAG of Texas?

Filing a Consumer Protection Complaint with OAG in Texas

Many Texas OAG complaints pertain to fraudulent or poor business practices. Consumer protection complaints are broad and include many subcategories like insurance, products, services, financial matters and more.

The Texas OAG works to “protect Texas consumers by accepting complaints, filing civil cases in the public interest and educating Texans on how to spot and avoid possible scams.” The various means of doing these things are laid out on the Consumer Protection page of the OAG website.

If you are trying to figure out how to file a complaint with the Texas AG, it will be assumed that you have already tried to work directly with the business. You should speak with the customer service for the business and contact someone there to try and resolve the issues. Many companies have a customer complaint form or an employee complaint form that can be used as a starting point.

If you have already spoken with the company management and filled out any necessary complaint form template for the company, but you still have not found satisfaction or resolution, you can contact the corporate headquarters for a company. If you still have not reached any type of resolution, you may need to learn how to file a complaint with Texas OAG.

There are two OAG contact options for complaints or concerns:

• The Texas Consumer Protection Hotline is (800) 621-0508.
• You may also complete the OAG consumer complaint form.

Filing a Complaint About Health Care

If you want to address a health care issue, the OAG provides a page for the Texas HHSC complaints. This page includes information about nursing home and pharmacy complaints as well as more generalized information.

For health care complaints, the Texas AG recommends retaining a lawyer and then filing a complaint with the Health Facility Compliance Group, which is maintained through the Texas DHS. You may also file Texas Department of Health and Human services complaints through the Texas OAG complaints page.

Contacts for Health Care Complaints

If you have health care complaints, you can contact two different agencies:

Texas Attorney General

• Online complaints page
• Phone: (800) 621-0508

Health Facility Compliance Group

• Website: Health Facility Compliance Group
• Phone: 512-834-6660

Filing a Complaint About Financial Scams

The website for the OAG offers a wide range of alerts about possible financial scams that affect consumers. On its alerts page, the OAG outlines issues that might fall under its jurisdiction that concern the state department of banking and finance in Texas.

Among the outlined issues on the Texas DOB page, consumers are warned about mortgage issues, fraudulent lottery, and potential problems with banks and lenders. Depending on the type of financial issue you are dealing with, the Attorney General encourages you to file a complaint through the OAG complaints page or you can contact the Texas Finance Commission, the Texas DOB, or the Texas SML.

There is some overlap in the various financial departments protecting consumers. If you have an issue with scammers or illegal activity with your mortgage or your savings account, for example, you can contact the Texas DOB or the Texas SML for help.

The Texas DOB forms are offered as an online complaint page and the Texas SML offers a complaint form template and instructions. You can also report a financial fraudulent activity through the OAG if you prefer rather than choosing to contact the state banking department of Texas.

Contacts for Financial Complaints

If you have financial complaints, you may contact several oversight agencies.

Texas Attorney General

• Online complaints page
• Phone: (800) 621-0508

Texas Department of Banking

• Online complaint form
• Phone: (512) 475-1300

Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending

• Online complaint form
• Phone: 1-877-276-5550

Filing a Complaint About Insurance

The Texas Department of Insurance Fraud unit will often handle a TDI complaint.

If you are looking at how to complain online about insurance fraud, you can start by completing the TDI complaint form. These forms will be divided up by the type of insurance covered by the TDI. You can also call the Texas DOI phone number to get more information or guidance. That number is (800) 252-3439.

Through the DOI website, you can do a TDI agent look-up, check insurance rates, get information about windstorm and flood insurance or learn more about health insurance coverage as well as file a complaint about a concern.

Contacts for Insurance Complaints

If you have an insurance complaint, the OAG also encourages you to file with the OAG in addition to filing a TDI complaint.

Texas Attorney General

• Online complaints page
• Phone: (800) 621-0508

Texas Department of Insurance

• Online DOI complaints page
• Phone: (800) 252-3439

Filing a Complaint About Employment

According to the Texas Workforce Commission website, which serves as the Texas Department of Employment and Labor, that department handles questions and concerns about “employment discrimination and complaints that TWC handles, unpaid wage claims, minimum wage, and child labor laws and complaints.”

If you face withheld wages or discrimination by your employer, the TWC handles issues more so than the Office of the Attorney General in Texas. The TWC website includes legal guidelines and information about the types of discrimination in the workplace as well as the laws surrounding payment for employees.

For employment cases, concerns are reported to the TWC by calling the various departments for additional guidance.

Contacts for Employment Complaints

To file a complaint about employment, find the correct agency based on the type of complaint.

Employment discrimination:

• Call 888-452-4778

Payday laws or child labor:

• Call 512-475-2670

To file an issue or tip about fraud in the workplace:

• Call 800-252-3642
• File online: TWC complaint page

OAG complaints may also include employment concerns.

Texas Attorney General

• Online complaints page
• Phone: (800) 621-0508

How to Apply for Unemployment

At the Texas Workforce Commission website, you can also find a section dedicated to unemployment issues. By clicking on the "Apply for Unemployment", you'll be taken to the Unemployment Benefits Service page where you can choose a needed option as well as read the tutorial on how to apply for unemployment benefits with Texas OAG.

To apply for unemployment benefits:

• Log on to with your TWC User ID or sign up to create one with a TWC Internet application.
• Enter your SSN, provide personal details, and answer the questions in the online application form.
• Call the TWC Tele-Center at 800-939-6631 to clarify any question as to your application.

For more details on how to log in to the Texas Workforce Commission website and apply for unemployment benefits, check out the online guidance.

How to File a Complaint With the Texas Attorney General?

There are many types of complaints handled by the OAG. If you are ready to take action, we include the steps for how to file a complaint with Texas Attorney General below.

For Texas Attorney General complaints, the OAG website states you must:

• Gather all supporting documents including information about the business, details, and specifics of the problem, dates and amounts and resolution attempts.
• Prepare to take your complaint into the public domain as they are published for others to view.
• Fill in the online form for OAG complaints.
• Or you may file complaints by traditional mail by printing out this form, completing it and mailing it to the Office of the Attorney General.

You can send paper complaints to:

Office of the Attorney General
Consumer Protection Division
PO Box 12548
Austin, TX 78711-2548

After filing your complaint with the OAG, you will receive a confirmation email letting you know it was received. That does not mean that a case will be opened about your complaint, however.

How Effective is it to File a Complaint with Texas Attorney General?

For many consumers, choosing to file a consumer complaint with the Texas AG or another oversight body is the final straw in trying to handle an issue with a company. By filing a complaint, you will essentially alert the government to what you feel is wrong-doing and the OAG may use your information and complaint to pursue action against a company.

Filing a complaint does not mean that the OAG represents you in any legal way, however. The office of the Attorney General represents the public at large and may pursue charges against a company based on a trend of issues and data to protect the public.

The OAG website is very clear about the scope of their involvement with consumer complaints. While they are a legal service for the state of Texas, they are not a lawyer for individuals. That means that they will not file a lawsuit on your behalf or file criminal charges to get your money back or take a company down.

Instead, the OAG will use your information as part of a collection to find trends or developing issues. Then the OAG will alert the public to the problem on its latest scams page to help others avoid the same issues, or it might file a civil lawsuit on behalf of all citizens in the state – not individuals.

The Texas OAG has published details of the various civil lawsuits it has filed against companies on behalf of the citizens of Texas. The most recent of the cases to be concluded was updated on the OAG cases webpage is about the State of Texas v. Marque Learning Center et al. In this case, consumers complained that the learning center was selling fraudulent degrees and transcripts.

The original case was filed in 2014 and ended with an extension of a temporary restraining order.

More recently, the OAG has opened a civil lawsuit on April 23, 2020 against Cal-Maine Foods for price gouging “for taking unfair advantage of the Governor’s COVID-19 disaster declaration and raising the price of eggs by around 300 percent without any supply issues or significant disruptions.”

The OAG has opened the case and is actively seeking consumer complaints about this company or others who might be price gouging.

The OAG press release also reminds the public (and would-be fraudulent companies) that “under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, any price-gougers may be required to reimburse consumers and may be held liable for civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation, with an additional penalty of up to $250,000 if the affected consumers are elderly.”

While it is too soon to know if the April 23 price gouging case filing by the Texas OAG will be successful, the Attorney General’s bio page contains information about previous successes with consumer complaints and lawsuits brought from them.

According to his summary, the OAG won $50 million from Volkswagen, or VW, in its emission cheating scandal. Additionally, more than a dozen lawsuits have been filed by the OAG to block the sale of synthetic marijuana. The OAG has also provided a breakdown of information and statistics about synthetic marijuana for consumers based on the information it has gathered.

When you are a victim of fraudulent practices like price gouging or unsafe products, you want retribution and financial satisfaction. Filing with the attorney general will not product an individual lawsuit, and he will not assign a lawyer to take your case.

Instead, when you file a complaint with the Texas OAG, you will have done your best to alert the state of Texas to consumer issues that it should be aware of and hopefully have warned others about potential scams or other illegal activities.

By Rebecca Garland
Business and Education Expert
Rebecca Garland, M.S. is a business and education writer. She holds secondary teaching certifications in six areas, has a degree in Business, and earned a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science. As an expert, Rebecca has been working with international clients since 2005.