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Quick analysis: A Summer Reprieve…

Welcome to summer! Everything is significantly down in May 2016 consumer complaints. TCPA is leading the charge with a 19.6% drop from April, while FDCPA and FCRA trail a bit behind at 14.8% and 15.4% down, respectively.

Even CFPB complaints are down more than usual, with a 14.6% drop from an April which was already down very significantly from March. Of course, we are still watching May data trickle in for a few more weeks, so expect that to go up a few points.

Good news all around for the collection industry. The only blanket we can throw on this month’s numbers is the fact that while TCPA and FCRA had significant dips in May activity, year-to-date they are still way up over 2015. And those YTD numbers are still pretty big: TCPA is up 56.6% and FCRA is up 26% over 2015 so far.

Fun Facts:

  • For May 2016, 35% of all consumer litigation plaintiffs had sued at least once before under consumer litigation statutes.
  • About 927 different companies were sued, down 2.5% over the 950 last month. And 715 different debt collectors were complained about to the CFPB, about 4% higher than last month’s 687 (but remember the caveat about more data trickling in).
  • The percentage of suits filed as putative class actions were fairly strong for two out of the three main statutes, with 18% for FDCPA, 17.2% for TCPA and only 7.3% for FCRA.
  • California attorney Todd M. Friedman represented the most consumers for the month with 30, and also the most consumers YTD with 171.
Comparisons: Current Period: Previous Period: Previous Year Comp:
May 01, 2016
May 31, 2016		 Apr 01, 2016
Apr 30, 2016		 May 01, 2015
May 31, 2015
CFPB Complaints  2725 3192 -14.6% 3374 -19.2%
FDCPA lawsuits  839 985 -14.8% 955 -12.1%
FCRA lawsuits  302 357 -15.4% 247 22.3%
TCPA lawsuits  349 434 -19.6% 238 46.6%
YTD CFPB Complaints  15700 17408 -9.8%
YTD FDCPA lawsuits  4425 4833 -8.4%
YTD FCRA lawsuits  1550 1230 26.0%
YTD TCPA lawsuits  2003 1279 56.6%

 

Complaint Statistics:

2725 consumers filed CFPB complaints against debt collectors and about 1267 consumers filed lawsuits under consumer statutes from May 01, 2016 to May 31, 2016. Here is an approximate breakdown:

  • 2725 CFPB Complaints
  • 839 FDCPA, 151 Class Action (18.0%)
  • 349 TCPA, 60 Class Action (17.2%)
  • 302 FCRA, 22 Class Action (7.3%)

Litigation Summary (scroll down for CFPB data):

  • Of those cases, there were about 1267 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
  • Of those plaintiffs, about 444, or (35%), had sued under consumer statutes before.
  • Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 2704 lawsuits since 2001
  • Actions were filed in 161 different US District Court branches.
  • About 927 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

  • 108 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
  • 52 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
  • 49 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Los Angeles
  • 48 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
  • 40 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
  • 37 Lawsuits: Arizona District Court – Phoenix
  • 35 Lawsuits: New Jersey District Court – Newark
  • 35 Lawsuits: Nevada District Court – Las Vegas
  • 29 Lawsuits: Colorado District Court – Denver
  • 28 Lawsuits: Minnesota District Court – Dmn

The most active consumer attorneys were:

  • Representing 30 Consumers: TODD M FRIEDMAN
  • Representing 28 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
  • Representing 27 Consumers: JASON BRYANT MCGARY
  • Representing 25 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
  • Representing 24 Consumers: PAUL JONATHAN SIEG
  • Representing 24 Consumers: MICHAEL JACOB WOOD
  • Representing 23 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 23 Consumers: DAVID SCOTT KLAIN
  • Representing 23 Consumers: AHMAD TAYSEER SULAIMAN
  • Representing 23 Consumers: MOHAMMED OMAR BADWAN

Statistics Year to Date:
6560 total lawsuits for 2016, including:

  • 4425 FDCPA
  • 1550 FCRA
  • 2003 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs for 2016: 6260 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

  • Representing 171 Consumers: TODD M FRIEDMAN
  • Representing 134 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
  • Representing 130 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 124 Consumers: DAVID SCOTT KLAIN
  • Representing 124 Consumers: PAUL JONATHAN SIEG
  • Representing 113 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
  • Representing 107 Consumers: SERGEI LEMBERG
  • Representing 105 Consumers: ADRIAN ROBERT BACON
  • Representing 97 Consumers: CELETHA CHATMAN
  • Representing 97 Consumers: MICHAEL JACOB WOOD

——————————————————————————————————-
CFPB Complaint Statistics:

There were 2725 complaints filed against debt collectors from May 01, 2016 to May 31, 2016.

Total number of debt collectors complained about: 715

The types of debt behind the complaints were:

  • 878 Other (i.e. phone, health club, etc.) (32%)
  • 498 Credit card (18%)
  • 488 I do not know (18%)
  • 469 Medical (17%)
  • 127 Mortgage (5%)
  • 110 Payday loan (4%)
  • 54 Non-federal student loan (2%)
  • 54 Auto (2%)
  • 47 Federal student loan (2%)

Here is a breakdown of complaints:

  • 1128 Cont’d attempts collect debt not owed (41%)
  • 638 Disclosure verification of debt (23%)
  • 375 Communication tactics (14%)
  • 244 False statements or representation (9%)
  • 185 Improper contact or sharing of info (7%)
  • 155 Taking/threatening an illegal action (6%)

The top five subissues were:

  • 612 Debt is not mine (22%)
  • 448 Not given enough info to verify debt (16%)
  • 363 Debt was paid (13%)
  • 213 Frequent or repeated calls (8%)
  • 182 Attempted to collect wrong amount (7%)

The top states complaints were filed from are:

  • 356 Complaints: CA
  • 277 Complaints: TX
  • 275 Complaints: FL
  • 142 Complaints: NY
  • 134 Complaints: GA
  • 104 Complaints: OH
  • 100 Complaints: IL
  • 99 Complaints: MD
  • 95 Complaints: NJ
  • 77 Complaints: PA

The status of the month’s complaints are as follows:

  • 2725 (100%)

This includes 2530 (93%) timely responses to complaints, and 195 (7%) untimely responses.

Of the company responses, consumers accepted 76 (3%) of them, disputed 286 (10%) of them, and 2363 (87%) were N\A.

The top five days for complaints were:

  • 154 Complaints: Wed, 05/18/2016
  • 144 Complaints: Thu, 05/19/2016
  • 141 Complaints: Thu, 05/05/2016
  • 137 Complaints: Wed, 05/11/2016
  • 134 Complaints: Tue, 05/10/2016

 

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API Access


We offer two powerful APIs to businesses that communicate with consumers:

  • The primary Litigious Consumer Scrub uses a combination of name, geography (and optionally SSN) to identify consumers who have filed lawsuits in the past.
  • The Litigious Consumer Phone Scrub pulls every phone number from our proprietary database of litigants and runs your phones against ours.

These APIs allow you to check your data against our database on the fly. Clients love using this to handle risk management without missing a beat in their daily workflow.

Workers Comp Scrub


Workers Comp-inspired FDCPA lawsuits are growing aggressively, particularly in Florida. Only WebRecon can tell you who in your database may have a Florida Worker’s Comp case filed that could trigger litigation against you.

You can’t stop 100% of all lawsuits, but if you collect medical in Florida and you don’t have a process in place to show the court that you have a way to check every file against the Workers Comp database, then you have lost the case before it even begins.

Knock these suits out of the park with the Workers Comp Scrub.

Our Monthly Client Newsletter with The Litigant Hotsheet


Anyone can get our guest newsletter, but only clients get the version with the Litigant Hotsheet –  identifying the most active consumer Plaintiffs filing suit in jurisdictions around the country each month. Grab a coffee, shut your door and open your database to make sure you are doing all you can to stay safe.

Individual Vendor Consumer Complaint Search


Just like Vendor Monitoring, but without the monitoring. Search any business’s history of consumer complaints (Litigation, CFPB, BBB, State AG) with the click of a button! Great for on-the-fly gut checks of the companies you do business with.

Vendor Monitoring


Through vicarious liability, you can be held accountable for the bad behavior of your vendors. If they abuse consumers, for all intents and purposes, so do you. This is a big freakin’ deal!

But fear not, friend. WebRecon can track consumer litigation, CFPB, BBB and State AG Office complaints against the companies you do business with.

When a new complaint of any kind is filed against any of the companies you are monitoring, we’ll automatically push a report out to you with all of the publicly available details so you can react accordingly and if necessary, protect your interests.

The Litigious Consumer Phone Scrub


Would you knowingly dial a number attached to a consumer with a history of litigation? Of course not.

But thousands of companies do just that, every single day. If you’d like to know who they are, simply review the court dockets. They are the ones getting sued the most.

Sure, you can stop dialing consumers. But your marketing and operations teams might not be too excited about that plan.

Another idea? Identify the consumers most likely to sue you, based on previous litigation histories, and just don’t call them.

Identify high-risk phones quickly & easily, before you expose yourself to unnecessary risk.

Litigation Context Search


This is really cool.

Our primary search engine is really designed to search for parties to litigation. Need to know more about a consumer plaintiff? That’s easy. Defendant? Check. Lawyer? No problem.

But if you need to find all 1099C lawsuits filed in July 2020… not so much.

Which is why we developed the Context Search. We have pulled out and indexed the full text from over 140k consumer lawsuits and made them available to you in a search engine, with more than 1000 new lawsuits added each month. Use it to search the text of filed litigation so you can easily identify those hard-to-define trends and cases worth following.

Individual Search Engine


Instantly and easily search our proprietary database for any lawsuit participant – Plaintiff, Defendant or Attorney.

In the results, we’ll show you the full consumer litigation history of any participant, including the “docket data” (who, what, why, where, when) and – in many cases – we can even provide a copy of their actual filed lawsuits.

You can also search by phone, date range, federal/state, class action, court, statute, etc. We offer a ton of flexibility to get you the exact search result you are looking for.

The Litigant Alert Ongoing Monitoring Process


Just like our one-time batch process, but without the whole “one time” thing.

When one of your consumers files new litigation against anyone in the future, you should be the first to know. Our monitoring service can make that happen.

WebRecon can monitor your entire database (or any segment of it) for future instances of consumer litigation filed by the very consumers you are working with, right now!

It is simple to add new consumers to the watchlist, remove inactive accounts, download full reports, etc.

Best of all, we only charge you for the volume of your monitoring database – not the frequency of the searches. Search daily, weekly, every Tuesday and Friday, the 15th of each month, whatever – it is totally up to you! You won’t pay a penny more.

The Litigant Alert One-Time Batch Process


This is our flagship service. Find out why hundreds of companies won’t contact any consumers before running them through WebRecon’s Litigant Alert.

This process identifies consumers with a history of litigation quickly & easily. If they have ever filed lawsuits under FDCPA, TCPA, FCRA or similar statutes, you’ll find out here. 

WebRecon’s proprietary database is simply the most comprehensive collection of dangerous consumer litigation data in existence. 

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