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Quick analysis: In December, FCRA led the way with a 12.8% increase over November, while TCPA (-6.7%) and FDCPA (-3%) were both down. The pattern holds for full year numbers as well, with FCRA (+3.5%) up and TCPA (-48.3%) & FDCPA (-4.4%) both down for the full year of 2021.

CFPB complaints against creditors and debt collectors slipped in December by -13.6%, but were up for the full year a pretty significant +30.4%.

In other news, putative class actions represented 18.2% of FDCPA, 38.1% of TCPA and 2.6% of FCRA lawsuits filed last month. About 39%(!) of all plaintiffs who filed suit last month had filed at least once before. And finally, New York attorney Craig B Sanders* took the top spot for representing the most consumers in December (20) while Georgia attorney Matthew Thomas Berry was the most active consumer attorney of the year with 298 consumers represented in all of 2021.

* Note, in the rankings below Steven Harry Meyer is listed as representing the most consumers in December, which is technically true, but he did it by packing a bunch of consumers plaintiffs into just two lawsuits. So we’re giving the actual award to Craig B Sanders.

Current Month: Previous Month: Previous
Year:		 Year to Date: Year to
Date Comp:
Dec 01, 2021
Dec 31, 2021		 Nov 01, 2021
Nov 30, 2021		 Dec 01, 2020
Dec 31, 2020		 Jan 01, 2021
Dec 31, 2021		 Jan 01, 2020
Dec 31, 2020
CFPB  4929 5702 -13.6% 4648 6.0% 70333 53939 30.4%
FDCPA  457 471 -3.0% 493 -7.3% 6582 6882 -4.4%
FCRA  459 407 12.8% 447 2.7% 5406 5224 3.5%
TCPA  97 104 -6.7% 194 -50.0% 1708 3302 -48.3%

 

Complaint Statistics:

4929 consumers filed CFPB complaints, and about 897 consumers filed lawsuits under consumer statutes from Dec 01, 2021 to Dec 31, 2021.

  • 4929 CFPB Complaints
  • 457 FDCPA, 83 Class Action (18.2%)
  • 97 TCPA, 37 Class Action (38.1%)
  • 459 FCRA, 12 Class Action (2.6%)

Litigation Summary (scroll down for CFPB data):

  • Of those cases, there were about 897 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
  • Of those plaintiffs, about 348, or (39%), had sued under consumer statutes before.
  • Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 3704 lawsuits since 2001
  • Actions were filed in 139 different US District Court branches.
  • About 560 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

  • 47 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
  • 40 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
  • 38 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
  • 38 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
  • 37 Lawsuits: Minnesota District Court – Dmn
  • 34 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
  • 33 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
  • 27 Lawsuits: Florida Southern District Court – Fort Lauderdale
  • 26 Lawsuits: New York Southern District Court – Foley Square
  • 25 Lawsuits: Nevada District Court – Las Vegas

The most active consumer attorneys were:

  • Representing 25 Consumers: STEVEN HARRY MEYER
  • Representing 20 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 19 Consumers: ALAIN CESAR
  • Representing 17 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
  • Representing 16 Consumers: THOMAS JOHN PATTI
  • Representing 16 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
  • Representing 15 Consumers: MICHAEL FREDERICK CARDOZA
  • Representing 14 Consumers: SHAWN WAYNE MILLER
  • Representing 13 Consumers: TODD M FRIEDMAN
  • Representing 12 Consumers: ADRIAN ROBERT BACON

Statistics Year to Date:
12231 total lawsuits for 2021, including:

  • 6582 FDCPA
  • 5406 FCRA
  • 1708 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs for 2021: 11075 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

  • Representing 298 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
  • Representing 248 Consumers: THOMAS JOHN PATTI
  • Representing 205 Consumers: TODD M FRIEDMAN
  • Representing 189 Consumers: JIBRAEL JARALLAH SAID HINDI
  • Representing 189 Consumers: ALEJANDRO EMMANUEL FIGUEROA
  • Representing 177 Consumers: DAVID M BARSHAY
  • Representing 166 Consumers: ADRIAN ROBERT BACON
  • Representing 166 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 160 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 148 Consumers: DAVID J PHILIPPS

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

There were 4929 complaints filed against debt collectors from Dec 01, 2021 to Dec 31, 2021.

Total number of debt collectors complained about: 783

The types of debt behind the complaints were:

  • 1261 Credit card debt (26%)
  • 1245 Other debt (25%)
  • 1198 I do not know (24%)
  • 684 Medical debt (14%)
  • 285 Auto debt (6%)
  • 105 Payday loan debt (2%)
  • 88 Mortgage debt (2%)
  • 34 Federal student loan debt (1%)
  • 29 Private student loan debt (1%)

Here is a breakdown of complaints:

  • 2940 Attempts to collect debt not owed (60%)
  • 923 Written notification about debt (19%)
  • 422 False statements or representation (9%)
  • 330 Took or threatened to take negative or legal action (7%)
  • 256 Communication tactics (5%)
  • 58 Threatened to contact someone or share information improperly (1%)

The top five subissues were:

  • 1263 Debt is not yours (26%)
  • 1244 Debt was result of identity theft (25%)
  • 685 Didnt receive enough information to verify debt (14%)
  • 377 Debt was paid (8%)
  • 351 Attempted to collect wrong amount (7%)

The top states complaints were filed from are:

  • 820 Complaints: TX
  • 459 Complaints: CA
  • 452 Complaints: FL
  • 422 Complaints: GA
  • 239 Complaints: NY
  • 210 Complaints: IL
  • 203 Complaints: PA
  • 195 Complaints: OH
  • 168 Complaints: NC
  • 152 Complaints: NJ

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

  • 3936 Closed with explanation (80%)
  • 494 Closed with non-monetary relief (10%)
  • 408 In progress (8%)
  • 59 Untimely response (1%)
  • 32 Closed with monetary relief (1%)

This includes 4792 (97%) timely responses to complaints, and 137 (3%) untimely responses.

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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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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.

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.

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.