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WebRecon Stats for April 2019: Lawsuits up, YTD trends remain the same

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May 8, 2019
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Blog/Litigation Stats

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.

Previous WebRecon Stats for Mar 2019: ​Upside Down & Inside Out Next WebRecon Stats for May 2019: FCRA Down, Everything Else Up (and the unexpected resurgence of a familiar name)
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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!

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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.
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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.