Quick analysis:
After July’s stunning drop in consumer litigation across the board, August saw an almost equally stunning course correction, bringing all three main statutes (FDCPA, TCPA, FCRA) to within 5% of where they were at the same time last year.
The big three statutes are all up double digits over the previous month (FDCPA +28.1%, TCPA +35.5% and FCRA +16.2%). CFPB complaints continue their 2017 streak up 7.5% over last month. Only our BBB complaint data was down significantly from last month. However, since BBB tracking is new for us it may be premature to accept these numbers as settled, so keep watch as we figure out the BBB trends.
Back to litigation…
Putative class actions remain relatively stable with 21% of FDCPA, 19.3% of TCPA and 9.7% of FCRA lawsuits filed that way.
About 34% of all plaintiffs who filed suit last month had filed at least once before.
And finally, New York attorney Craig B Sanders takes back the crown as the most active consumer attorney this month with representation of 51 consumers in August, and for representing the most consumers year-to-date (384).
| Current Month: | Previous Month: | Previous Year: |
Year to Date: | Year to Date Comp: |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 01, 2017 Aug 31, 2017 |
Jul 01, 2017 Jul 31, 2017 |
Aug 01, 2016 Aug 31, 2016 |
Jan 01, 2017 Aug 31, 2017 |
Jan 01, 2016 Aug 31, 2016 |
|||||
| BBB | 828 | 1305 | -36.6% | 1045 | -20.8% | 8191 | 8468 | -3.3% | |
| CFPB | 4528 | 4211 | 7.5% | 4287 | 5.6% | 33243 | 26837 | 23.9% | |
| FDCPA | 870 | 679 | 28.1% | 848 | 2.6% | 6811 | 7101 | -4.1% | |
| FCRA | 351 | 302 | 16.2% | 383 | -8.4% | 2772 | 2647 | 4.7% | |
| TCPA | 374 | 276 | 35.5% | 395 | -5.3% | 3166 | 3261 | -2.9% | |
Complaint Statistics:
828 consumers filed BBB complaints, 4528 consumers filed CFPB complaints, and about 1380 consumers filed lawsuits under consumer statutes from Aug 01, 2017 to Aug 31, 2017.
- 828 BBB Complaints
- 4528 CFPB Complaints
- 870 FDCPA, 183 Class Action (21.0%)
- 374 TCPA, 72 Class Action (19.3%)
- 351 FCRA, 34 Class Action (9.7%)
Litigation Summary (scroll down for BBB and CFPB data):
- Of those cases, there were about 1380 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
- Of those plaintiffs, about 464, or (34%), had sued under consumer statutes before.
- Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 2961 lawsuits since 2001
- Actions were filed in 161 different US District Court branches.
- About 882 different collection firms and creditors were sued.
The top courts where lawsuits were filed:
- 112 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
- 74 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
- 68 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
- 63 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
- 63 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Central Islip
- 41 Lawsuits: Indiana Southern District Court – Indianapolis
- 38 Lawsuits: Nevada District Court – Las Vegas
- 34 Lawsuits: Michigan Eastern District Court – Detroit
- 33 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
- 33 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
The most active consumer attorneys were:
- Representing 51 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
- Representing 36 Consumers: AHMAD TAYSEER SULAIMAN
- Representing 33 Consumers: MOHAMMED OMAR BADWAN
- Representing 29 Consumers: MICHAEL JACOB WOOD
- Representing 29 Consumers: CELETHA CHATMAN
- Representing 26 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
- Representing 26 Consumers: OCTAVIO GOMEZ
- Representing 21 Consumers: PAUL JONATHAN SIEG
- Representing 20 Consumers: MITCHELL L PASHKIN
- Representing 19 Consumers: JOHN THOMAS STEINKAMP
Statistics Year to Date:
10544 total lawsuits for 2017, including:
- 6811 FDCPA
- 2772 FCRA
- 3166 TCPA
Number of Unique Plaintiffs for 2017: 10073 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)
The most active consumer attorneys of the year:
- Representing 384 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
- Representing 324 Consumers: AHMAD TAYSEER SULAIMAN
- Representing 280 Consumers: MOHAMMED OMAR BADWAN
- Representing 258 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
- Representing 244 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
- Representing 239 Consumers: TODD M FRIEDMAN
- Representing 237 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
- Representing 201 Consumers: TAXIARCHIS HATZIDIMITRIADIS
- Representing 166 Consumers: PAUL JONATHAN SIEG
- Representing 160 Consumers: MICHAEL JACOB WOOD
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BBB Complaint Statistics:
There were a total of 828 BBB complaints against debt collectors and creditors from Aug 01, 2017 to Aug 31, 2017. That is down -36.6% from last month.
The categories of complaints filed were:
- 571 Billing/Collection Issues (69%)
- 232 Problems with Product/Service (28%)
- 9 Delivery Issues (1%)
- 9 Advertising/Sales Issues (1%)
- 4 (0%)
- 3 Guarantee/Warranty Issues (0%)
The dispositions of these complaints are:
- 587 The Business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer did not accept the response, OR BBB has not heard back from the consumer as to their satisfaction. (71%)
- 137 The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction. (17%)
- 89 The business failed to respond to the dispute. (11%)
- 9 BBB is unable to locate the business. (1%)
- 6 The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it. (1%)
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CFPB Complaint Statistics:
There were 4528 complaints filed against debt collectors from Aug 01, 2017 to Aug 31, 2017.
Total number of debt collectors complained about: 831
The types of debt behind the complaints were:
- 1609 Other debt (36%)
- 900 I do not know (20%)
- 758 Credit card debt (17%)
- 699 Medical debt (15%)
- 159 Payday loan debt (4%)
- 128 Auto debt (3%)
- 104 Mortgage debt (2%)
- 86 Private student loan debt (2%)
- 85 Federal student loan debt (2%)
Here is a breakdown of complaints:
- 1684 Attempts to collect debt not owed (37%)
- 1362 Written notification about debt (30%)
- 564 Communication tactics (12%)
- 435 Took or threatened to take negative or legal action (10%)
- 373 False statements or representation (8%)
- 110 Threatened to contact someone or share information improperly (2%)
The top five subissues were:
- 1062 Didnt receive enough information to verify debt (23%)
- 947 Debt is not yours (21%)
- 421 Debt was paid (9%)
- 307 Attempted to collect wrong amount (7%)
- 304 Frequent or repeated calls (7%)
The top states complaints were filed from are:
- 701 Complaints: CA
- 528 Complaints: FL
- 459 Complaints: TX
- 260 Complaints: GA
- 218 Complaints: NY
- 176 Complaints: IL
- 153 Complaints: NC
- 152 Complaints: NJ
- 141 Complaints:
- 130 Complaints: OH
The status of the month’s complaints are as follows:
- 3674 Closed with explanation (81%)
- 400 Closed with non-monetary relief (9%)
- 306 In progress (7%)
- 125 Untimely response (3%)
- 23 Closed with monetary relief (1%)
This includes 4306 (95%) timely responses to complaints, and 222 (5%) untimely responses.