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Quick analysis: Lawsuits up, YTD trends remain the same.

For the first time since January, all lawsuit categories were up in April (FDCPA +11.5%, FCRA +22.3%, TCPA +1.7%) though CFPB complaints were down (fairly dramatically at -21.3%) from the prior month.

FDCPA (-8.3%) and TCPA (10.9%) are still trending down YTD while FCRA is back trending up YTD (+5.3%) after briefly dipping into negative YTD territory last month.

In other news, putative class actions were pretty normal last month with 22.1% of FDCPA, 33.6% of TCPA and 8.6% of FCRA lawsuits filed that way.

About 32% of all plaintiffs who filed suit last month had filed at least once before.

And finally, after several months off the top of our list, New York attorney Craig B. Sanders has come back and represented more consumers than anyone else last month (49), while Delaware FCRA attorney Antranig Garibian retains the crown for most lawsuits of the year, with 154 consumers represented.

Current Month: Previous Month: Previous
Year:		 Year to Date: Year to
Date Comp:
Apr 01, 2019
Apr 30, 2019		 Mar 01, 2019
Mar 31, 2019		 Apr 01, 2018
Apr 30, 2018		 Jan 01, 2019
Apr 30, 2019		 Jan 01, 2018
Apr 30, 2018
CFPB  3358 4269 -21.3% 4810 -30.2% 14635 19648 -25.5%
FDCPA  812 722 11.5% 720 11.8% 2904 3167 -8.3%
FCRA  428 350 22.3% 335 27.8% 1513 1437 5.3%
TCPA  294 287 1.7% 332 -12.0% 1147 1287 -10.9%

 

Complaint Statistics:

3358 consumers filed CFPB complaints, and about 1340 consumers filed lawsuits under consumer statutes from Apr 01, 2019 to Apr 30, 2019.

  • 3358 CFPB Complaints
  • 812 FDCPA, 178 Class Action (22.1%)
  • 294 TCPA, 98 Class Action (33.6%)
  • 428 FCRA, 37 Class Action (8.6%)

Litigation Summary (scroll down for CFPB data):

  • Of those cases, there were about 1340 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
  • Of those plaintiffs, about 430, or (32%), had sued under consumer statutes before.
  • Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 6320 lawsuits since 2001
  • Actions were filed in 166 different US District Court branches.
  • About 870 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

  • 86 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
  • 79 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
  • 56 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Central Islip
  • 54 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
  • 47 Lawsuits: Indiana Southern District Court – Indianapolis
  • 47 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
  • 39 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
  • 31 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
  • 30 Lawsuits: Nevada District Court – Las Vegas
  • 28 Lawsuits: Delaware District Court – Wilmington

The most active consumer attorneys were:

  • Representing 49 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 34 Consumers: MITCHELL L PASHKIN
  • Representing 31 Consumers: ANTRANIG N GARIBIAN
  • Representing 27 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 25 Consumers: DAVID SCOTT KLAIN
  • Representing 24 Consumers: TAXIARCHIS HATZIDIMITRIADIS
  • Representing 23 Consumers: DAVID W HEMMINGER
  • Representing 22 Consumers: SERGEI LEMBERG
  • Representing 22 Consumers: JOHN THOMAS STEINKAMP
  • Representing 22 Consumers: DANIEL A EDELMAN

Statistics Year to Date:
4774 total lawsuits for 2019, including:

  • 2904 FDCPA
  • 1513 FCRA
  • 1147 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs for 2019: 4726 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

  • Representing 154 Consumers: ANTRANIG N GARIBIAN
  • Representing 119 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 116 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 103 Consumers: TAXIARCHIS HATZIDIMITRIADIS
  • Representing 102 Consumers: DAVID SCOTT KLAIN
  • Representing 99 Consumers: MITCHELL L PASHKIN
  • Representing 80 Consumers: DAVID W HEMMINGER
  • Representing 78 Consumers: JOHN THOMAS STEINKAMP
  • Representing 74 Consumers: SERGEI LEMBERG
  • Representing 67 Consumers: TODD M FRIEDMAN

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

There were 3358 complaints filed against debt collectors from Apr 01, 2019 to Apr 30, 2019.

Total number of debt collectors complained about: 734

The types of debt behind the complaints were:

  • 878 Other debt (26%)
  • 779 Credit card debt (23%)
  • 715 I do not know (21%)
  • 590 Medical debt (18%)
  • 115 Auto debt (3%)
  • 86 Payday loan debt (3%)
  • 70 Mortgage debt (2%)
  • 66 Private student loan debt (2%)
  • 59 Federal student loan debt (2%)

Here is a breakdown of complaints:

  • 1644 Attempts to collect debt not owed (49%)
  • 662 Written notification about debt (20%)
  • 355 Communication tactics (11%)
  • 324 Took or threatened to take negative or legal action (10%)
  • 286 False statements or representation (9%)
  • 87 Threatened to contact someone or share information improperly (3%)

The top five subissues were:

  • 792 Debt is not yours (24%)
  • 451 Didnt receive enough information to verify debt (13%)
  • 425 Debt was result of identity theft (13%)
  • 354 Debt was paid (11%)
  • 250 Attempted to collect wrong amount (7%)

The top states complaints were filed from are:

  • 522 Complaints: TX
  • 404 Complaints: CA
  • 363 Complaints: FL
  • 194 Complaints: GA
  • 165 Complaints: NY
  • 107 Complaints: NJ
  • 103 Complaints: MI
  • 99 Complaints: OH
  • 87 Complaints: PA
  • 83 Complaints:

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

  • 2558 Closed with explanation (76%)
  • 435 In progress (13%)
  • 284 Closed with non-monetary relief (8%)
  • 64 Untimely response (2%)
  • 17 Closed with monetary relief (1%)

This includes 3266 (97%) timely responses to complaints, and 92 (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.