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WebRecon Stats for April 2018: I’m goin’ down, down, down, down…

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May 30, 2018
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Blog/Litigation Stats

Quick analysis: Everything was down last month.

Even CFPB complaints, which have been on a tear, dropped by 10% from the previous month. And FCRA, which has been bucking all trends to have its breakout year, dropped by 9.7%. Those two categories, incidentally, are the only two that are still up YTD. Just down for the month, along with everything else.

In other news, putative class actions were mixed last month with 19% of FDCPA, 22% of TCPA and 9.3% of FCRA lawsuits filed that way.

About 34% of all plaintiffs who filed suit last month had filed at least once before.

And finally, Chicago-area Atlas Consumer Law dominated the month as four of its attorneys took the top four spots for most active consumer attorney of the month - Ahmad Tayseer Sulaiman (43 consumers), Mohammed Omar Badwan (38 consumers), Nathan Charles Volheim (37 consumers), Taxiarchis Hatzidimitriadis (36 consumers). Granted, there is going to be overlap as multiple attorneys can be named as counsel in lawsuits. But still, it is a bit striking. New York attorney Craig B Sanders still has represented the most consumers YTD, with 220.

Current Month: Previous Month: Previous
Year:		 Year to Date: Year to
Date Comp:
Apr 01, 2018
Apr 30, 2018		 Mar 01, 2018
Mar 31, 2018		 Apr 01, 2017
Apr 30, 2017		 Jan 01, 2018
Apr 30, 2018		 Jan 01, 2017
Apr 30, 2017
BBB  1517 2313 -34.4% 5861 -74.1% 10649 23818 -55.3%
CFPB  4742 5270 -10.0% 4225 12.2% 19484 16651 17.0%
FDCPA  720 844 -14.7% 802 -10.2% 3167 3389 -6.6%
FCRA  335 371 -9.7% 266 25.9% 1436 1355 6.0%
TCPA  332 342 -2.9% 352 -5.7% 1286 1556 -17.4%

 

Complaint Statistics:

1517 consumers filed BBB complaints, 4742 consumers filed CFPB complaints, and about 1182 consumers filed lawsuits under consumer statutes from Apr 01, 2018 to Apr 30, 2018.

  • 1517 BBB Complaints
  • 4742 CFPB Complaints
  • 720 FDCPA, 137 Class Action (19.0%)
  • 332 TCPA, 73 Class Action (22.0%)
  • 335 FCRA, 31 Class Action (9.3%)

Litigation Summary (scroll down for BBB and CFPB data):

  • Of those cases, there were about 1182 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
  • Of those plaintiffs, about 402, or (34%), had sued under consumer statutes before.
  • Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 2062 lawsuits since 2001
  • Actions were filed in 157 different US District Court branches.
  • About 772 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

  • 86 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court - Chicago
  • 58 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court - Tampa
  • 46 Lawsuits: California Central District Court - Western Division - Los Angeles
  • 44 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court - Atlanta
  • 37 Lawsuits: Florida Southern District Court - Fort Lauderdale
  • 36 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court - Brooklyn
  • 35 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court - Philadelphia
  • 34 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court - Central Islip
  • 33 Lawsuits: Nevada District Court - Las Vegas
  • 28 Lawsuits: California Eastern District Court - Sacramento

The most active consumer attorneys were:

  • Representing 43 Consumers: AHMAD TAYSEER SULAIMAN
  • Representing 38 Consumers: MOHAMMED OMAR BADWAN
  • Representing 37 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 36 Consumers: TAXIARCHIS HATZIDIMITRIADIS
  • Representing 30 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
  • Representing 23 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 23 Consumers: ANTRANIG N GARIBIAN
  • Representing 22 Consumers: ELLIOT GALE
  • Representing 21 Consumers: OMAR TAYSEER SULAIMAN
  • Representing 20 Consumers: DAVID SCOTT KLAIN

Statistics Year to Date:
4797 total lawsuits for 2018, including:

  • 3167 FDCPA
  • 1436 FCRA
  • 1286 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs for 2018: 4844 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

  • Representing 220 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 176 Consumers: AHMAD TAYSEER SULAIMAN
  • Representing 168 Consumers: MOHAMMED OMAR BADWAN
  • Representing 144 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 131 Consumers: TAXIARCHIS HATZIDIMITRIADIS
  • Representing 131 Consumers: THOMAS J CONNICK
  • Representing 121 Consumers: ELLIOT GALE
  • Representing 84 Consumers: CELETHA CHATMAN
  • Representing 84 Consumers: MICHAEL JACOB WOOD
  • Representing 81 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER

——————————————————————————————————-
BBB Complaint Statistics:

There were a total of 1517 BBB complaints against debt collectors and creditors from Apr 01, 2018 to Apr 30, 2018. That is down -34.4% from last month.

The categories of complaints filed were:

  • 898 Billing/Collection Issues (59%)
  • 539 Problems with Product/Service (36%)
  • 35 Advertising/Sales Issues (2%)
  • 22 Delivery Issues (1%)
  • 18 (1%)
  • 5 Guarantee/Warranty Issues (0%)

The dispositions of these complaints are:

  • 1078 The Business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either (a) did not accept the response, OR (b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction. (71%)
  • 281 The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction. (19%)
  • 94 The business failed to respond to the dispute. (6%)
  • 40 (3%)
  • 13 BBB is unable to locate the business. (1%)
  • 11 The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it. (1%)

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

There were 4742 complaints filed against debt collectors from Apr 01, 2018 to Apr 30, 2018.

Total number of debt collectors complained about: 869

The types of debt behind the complaints were:

  • 1414 Other debt (30%)
  • 1115 Credit card debt (24%)
  • 941 I do not know (20%)
  • 725 Medical debt (15%)
  • 144 Auto debt (3%)
  • 124 Payday loan debt (3%)
  • 113 Mortgage debt (2%)
  • 85 Private student loan debt (2%)
  • 81 Federal student loan debt (2%)

Here is a breakdown of complaints:

  • 2092 Attempts to collect debt not owed (44%)
  • 1225 Written notification about debt (26%)
  • 504 Communication tactics (11%)
  • 417 Took or threatened to take negative or legal action (9%)
  • 385 False statements or representation (8%)
  • 119 Threatened to contact someone or share information improperly (3%)

The top five subissues were:

  • 1158 Debt is not yours (24%)
  • 949 Didnt receive enough information to verify debt (20%)
  • 484 Debt was paid (10%)
  • 377 Debt was result of identity theft (8%)
  • 308 Attempted to collect wrong amount (6%)

The top states complaints were filed from are:

  • 610 Complaints: TX
  • 485 Complaints: CA
  • 467 Complaints: FL
  • 297 Complaints: GA
  • 284 Complaints: NY
  • 191 Complaints: IL
  • 174 Complaints: NJ
  • 157 Complaints: NC
  • 145 Complaints: PA
  • 139 Complaints: MI

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

  • 3717 Closed with explanation (78%)
  • 578 Closed with non-monetary relief (12%)
  • 303 In progress (6%)
  • 112 Untimely response (2%)
  • 32 Closed with monetary relief (1%)

This includes 4566 (96%) timely responses to complaints, and 176 (4%) untimely responses.

Previous WebRecon Stats for Mar 2018: Strike That, Reverse It Next WebRecon Stats for May 2018: Get back to where you once belonged.
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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.