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Quick analysis: Lawsuits Up Across The Board

CFPB complaints (+8.3%) and consumer litigation (FDCPA +10.6%, TCPA +10.1%, FCRA +17.3%) all spiked by double-digit percentages across all three major consumer statutes in March. However, only FCRA (+3.8%) is up YTD. CFPB complaints (-2.8%), FDCPA (-3.6%) and TCPA lawsuits (-39.8%) are all down compared to this time last year.

In other news, putative class actions represented 15.8% of FDCPA, 49.2% of TCPA and 4.8% of FCRA lawsuits filed last month. Those percentages are all up from the previous month as well. About 43% of all plaintiffs who filed suit last month had filed at least once before. And finally, Georgia attorney Matthew Thomas Berry and Florida attorney Thomas John Patti tied for the top spot for representing the most consumers in February (41) while Patti’s colleague Jibrael S. Hindi has represented the most consumers for the year so far (182).

Current Month: Previous Month: Previous
Year:		 Year to Date: Year to
Date Comp:
Mar 01, 2022
Mar 31, 2022		 Feb 01, 2022
Feb 28, 2022		 Mar 01, 2021
Mar 31, 2021		 Jan 01, 2022
Mar 31, 2022		 Jan 01, 2021
Mar 31, 2021
CFPB  5984 5524 8.3% 6743 -11.3% 16584 17065 -2.8%
FDCPA  500 452 10.6% 559 -10.6% 1470 1525 -3.6%
FCRA  495 422 17.3% 515 -3.9% 1441 1388 3.8%
TCPA  120 109 10.1% 199 -39.7% 360 598 -39.8%

 

Complaint Statistics:

5984 consumers filed CFPB complaints, and about 1019 consumers filed lawsuits under consumer statutes from Mar 01, 2022 to Mar 31, 2022.

  • 5984 CFPB Complaints
  • 500 FDCPA, 79 Class Action (15.8%)
  • 120 TCPA, 59 Class Action (49.2%)
  • 495 FCRA, 24 Class Action (4.8%)

Litigation Summary (scroll down for CFPB data):

  • Of those cases, there were about 1019 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
  • Of those plaintiffs, about 437, or (43%), had sued under consumer statutes before.
  • Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 3163 lawsuits since 2001
  • Actions were filed in 151 different US District Court branches.
  • About 643 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

  • 59 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
  • 55 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
  • 50 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
  • 47 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
  • 26 Lawsuits: New York Southern District Court – Foley Square
  • 26 Lawsuits: Minnesota District Court – Dmn
  • 24 Lawsuits: Indiana Southern District Court – Indianapolis
  • 24 Lawsuits: Florida Southern District Court – Fort Lauderdale
  • 23 Lawsuits: Texas Northern District Court – Dallas
  • 23 Lawsuits: Arizona District Court – Phoenix

The most active consumer attorneys were:

  • Representing 41 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
  • Representing 41 Consumers: THOMAS JOHN PATTI
  • Representing 40 Consumers: JIBRAEL JARALLAH SAID HINDI
  • Representing 22 Consumers: MICHAEL FREDERICK CARDOZA
  • Representing 21 Consumers: CHRISTOPHER NEIL ARMOR
  • Representing 19 Consumers: CHRISTOFER MERRITT
  • Representing 14 Consumers: JOHN THOMAS STEINKAMP
  • Representing 13 Consumers: JAMES H LAWSON
  • Representing 13 Consumers: DAVID ALI CHAMI

Statistics Year to Date:
3025 total lawsuits for 2022, including:

  • 1470 FDCPA
  • 1441 FCRA
  • 360 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs for 2022: 2798 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

  • Representing 182 Consumers: JIBRAEL JARALLAH SAID HINDI
  • Representing 165 Consumers: THOMAS JOHN PATTI
  • Representing 87 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
  • Representing 51 Consumers: CHRISTOPHER NEIL ARMOR
  • Representing 42 Consumers: MICHAEL FREDERICK CARDOZA
  • Representing 37 Consumers: YAAKOV SAKS
  • Representing 36 Consumers: ALEJANDRO EMMANUEL FIGUEROA
  • Representing 35 Consumers: SYED HASEEB HUSSAIN
  • Representing 34 Consumers: DAVID J S MADGETT

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

There were 5984 complaints filed against debt collectors from Mar 01, 2022 to Mar 31, 2022.

Total number of debt collectors complained about: 869

The types of debt behind the complaints were:

  • 1535 I do not know (26%)
  • 1486 Credit card debt (25%)
  • 1441 Other debt (24%)
  • 911 Medical debt (15%)
  • 309 Auto debt (5%)
  • 119 Payday loan debt (2%)
  • 108 Mortgage debt (2%)
  • 46 Private student loan debt (1%)
  • 29 Federal student loan debt (0%)

Here is a breakdown of complaints:

  • 3202 Attempts to collect debt not owed (54%)
  • 1257 Written notification about debt (21%)
  • 532 Took or threatened to take negative or legal action (9%)
  • 477 False statements or representation (8%)
  • 407 Communication tactics (7%)
  • 109 Threatened to contact someone or share information improperly (2%)

The top five subissues were:

  • 1718 Debt is not yours (29%)
  • 900 Debt was result of identity theft (15%)
  • 799 Didnt receive enough information to verify debt (13%)
  • 501 Debt was paid (8%)
  • 391 Attempted to collect wrong amount (7%)

The top states complaints were filed from are:

  • 877 Complaints: FL
  • 665 Complaints: TX
  • 512 Complaints: CA
  • 436 Complaints: GA
  • 264 Complaints: IL
  • 255 Complaints: NY
  • 244 Complaints: PA
  • 206 Complaints: OH
  • 189 Complaints: VA
  • 187 Complaints: NC

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

  • 4545 Closed with explanation (76%)
  • 719 In progress (12%)
  • 593 Closed with non-monetary relief (10%)
  • 89 Untimely response (1%)
  • 38 Closed with monetary relief (1%)

This includes 5820 (97%) timely responses to complaints, and 164 (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.

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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.