train debt collection agency court cases

Quick analysis: After a May that saw declines across the board, June picked up steam with increases in court filings for all three of the main consumer statutes (FDCPA, TCPA and FCRA).

FCRA led the charge with a robust 34.5% uptick in June, followed by FDCPA with an 11% increase and TCPA with a relatively anemic 6.3% increase.

Year to date, FDCPA is down 10.9% over the same period in 2015, but FCRA and TCPA are up a strong 27.6% and 46.8% respectively.

CFPB complaints are steady, down just a bit over last month (2.6%). But as usual we can expect that to go up a few points after all of the data finishes trickling in, so it will probably be a wash.

Fun Facts:

For June 2016, 35% of all consumer litigation plaintiffs had sued at least once before under consumer litigation statutes.

About 880 different companies were sued, down 5.3% over the 927 last month. And 741 different debt collectors were complained about to the CFPB, about 3.6% higher than last month’s 715 (but remember the caveat about more data trickling in).

The percentage of suits filed as putative class actions were fairly typical for two out of the three main statutes, with 15.1% for FDCPA, 16.3% for TCPA and only 3.9% for FCRA.

New York attorney Craig B. Sanders represented the most consumers for the month with 53, but Todd M. Friedman has represented the most consumers YTD with 199.

Comparisons: Current Period: Previous Period: Previous Year Comp:
Jun 01, 2016
Jun 30, 2016		 May 01, 2016
May 31, 2016		 Jun 01, 2015
Jun 30, 2015
CFPB Complaints  2970 3049 -2.6% 3513 -15.5%
FDCPA lawsuits  939 846 11.0% 1192 -21.2%
FCRA lawsuits  409 304 34.5% 306 33.7%
TCPA lawsuits  374 352 6.3% 343 9.0%
YTD CFPB Complaints  19059 20921 -8.9%
YTD FDCPA lawsuits  5371 6025 -10.9%
YTD FCRA lawsuits  1960 1536 27.6%
YTD TCPA lawsuits  2380 1621 46.8%

 

Complaint Statistics:

2970 consumers filed CFPB complaints against debt collectors and about 1415 consumers filed lawsuits under consumer statutes from Jun 01, 2016 to Jun 30, 2016. Here is an approximate breakdown:

  • 2970 CFPB Complaints
  • 939 FDCPA, 142 Class Action (15.1%)
  • 374 TCPA, 61 Class Action (16.3%)
  • 409 FCRA, 16 Class Action (3.9%)

Litigation Summary (scroll down for CFPB data):

  • Of those cases, there were about 1415 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
  • Of those plaintiffs, about 497, or (35%), had sued under consumer statutes before.
  • Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 2547 lawsuits since 2001
  • Actions were filed in 164 different US District Court branches.
  • About 880 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

  • 102 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
  • 77 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Los Angeles
  • 68 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
  • 61 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
  • 48 Lawsuits: California Northern District Court – San Jose
  • 44 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Central Islip
  • 44 Lawsuits: Nevada District Court – Las Vegas
  • 41 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
  • 38 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
  • 38 Lawsuits: Arizona District Court – Phoenix

The most active consumer attorneys were:

  • Representing 53 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 43 Consumers: ELLIOT WAYNE GALE
  • Representing 35 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
  • Representing 33 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
  • Representing 31 Consumers: DAVID M BARSHAY
  • Representing 29 Consumers: AMY LYNN BENNECOFF GINSBURG
  • Representing 28 Consumers: TODD M FRIEDMAN
  • Representing 27 Consumers: MICHAEL JACOB WOOD
  • Representing 25 Consumers: SERGEI LEMBERG
  • Representing 25 Consumers: JOHN D BLYTHIN

Statistics Year to Date:
8006 total lawsuits for 2016, including:

  • 5371 FDCPA
  • 1960 FCRA
  • 2380 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs for 2016: 7553 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

  • Representing 199 Consumers: TODD M FRIEDMAN
  • Representing 169 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
  • Representing 152 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 146 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
  • Representing 145 Consumers: PAUL JONATHAN SIEG
  • Representing 145 Consumers: DAVID SCOTT KLAIN
  • Representing 132 Consumers: SERGEI LEMBERG
  • Representing 124 Consumers: MICHAEL JACOB WOOD
  • Representing 123 Consumers: ADRIAN ROBERT BACON
  • Representing 121 Consumers: CELETHA CHATMAN

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

There were 2970 complaints filed against debt collectors from Jun 01, 2016 to Jun 30, 2016.

Total number of debt collectors complained about: 741

The types of debt behind the complaints were:

  • 953 Other (i.e. phone, health club, etc.) (32%)
  • 601 Credit card (20%)
  • 505 I do not know (17%)
  • 496 Medical (17%)
  • 130 Payday loan (4%)
  • 126 Mortgage (4%)
  • 73 Auto (2%)
  • 48 Federal student loan (2%)
  • 38 Non-federal student loan (1%)

Here is a breakdown of complaints:

  • 1231 Cont’d attempts collect debt not owed (41%)
  • 738 Disclosure verification of debt (25%)
  • 409 Communication tactics (14%)
  • 223 False statements or representation (8%)
  • 187 Taking/threatening an illegal action (6%)
  • 182 Improper contact or sharing of info (6%)

The top five subissues were:

  • 679 Debt is not mine (23%)
  • 526 Not given enough info to verify debt (18%)
  • 388 Debt was paid (13%)
  • 254 Frequent or repeated calls (9%)
  • 171 Right to dispute notice not received (6%)

The top states complaints were filed from are:

  • 412 Complaints: CA
  • 329 Complaints: FL
  • 309 Complaints: TX
  • 178 Complaints: NY
  • 157 Complaints: GA
  • 121 Complaints: NJ
  • 101 Complaints: IL
  • 98 Complaints: PA
  • 96 Complaints: OH
  • 84 Complaints: VA

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

  • 2970 (100%)

This includes 2771 (93%) timely responses to complaints, and 199 (7%) untimely responses.

Of the company responses, consumers accepted 0 (%) of them, disputed 452 (15%) of them, and 2518 (85%) were N\A.

The top five days for complaints were:

  • 147 Complaints: Thu, 06/23/2016
  • 146 Complaints: Wed, 06/08/2016
  • 146 Complaints: Wed, 06/29/2016
  • 143 Complaints: Thu, 06/16/2016
  • 142 Complaints: Thu, 06/02/2016

 

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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.

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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.

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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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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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.