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Quick analysis: Is FCRA the New TCPA?

Prelude…vcra big picture.

In a month where the numbers of every other type of complaint was a bit depressed, FCRA has continued its remarkable growth streak, with a strong 422 plaintiffs represented in February invoking the statute.

FCRA used to be the ugly stepchild to TCPA, the statute that almost always had the the slightly better numbers and momentum. That trend appears to have subsided. Notice how the red lines (TCPA) used to be more prominent in the grid below, and how it is now the blue lines (FCRA) creating the most waves.

CFPB complaints, while down from January’s extraordinary number of 4962, is still several hundred complaints above the last 12-months average of 4162 with 4439 complaints for the month of February.

Back to consumer litigation…

Putative class actions were higher than average last month with 23% of FDCPA, 22.3% of TCPA and 36.3% of FCRA lawsuits filed that way.

About 33% of all plaintiffs who filed suit last month had filed at least once before.

And finally, Ohio attorney Thomas J. Connick broke out of obscurity and took the crown as the most active consumer attorney this month by representing 129 consumers in a mega-FCRA case . Not uncoincidentally, he also has the most consumers represented year-to-date, also 129.

Current Month: Previous Month: Previous
Year:		 Year to Date: Year to
Date Comp:
Feb 01, 2018
Feb 28, 2018		 Jan 01, 2018
Jan 31, 2018		 Feb 01, 2017
Feb 28, 2017		 Jan 01, 2018
Feb 28, 2018		 Jan 01, 2017
Feb 28, 2017
BBB  2458 2752 -10.7% 5195 -52.7% 5210 10042 -48.1%
CFPB  4439 4962 -10.5% 4010 10.7% 9401 7778 20.9%
FDCPA  788 815 -3.3% 829 -4.9% 1603 1650 -2.8%
FCRA  422 309 36.6% 265 59.2% 731 683 7.0%
TCPA  296 315 -6.0% 376 -21.3% 611 777 -21.4%

 

Complaint Statistics:

2458 consumers filed BBB complaints, 4439 consumers filed CFPB complaints, and about 1302 consumers filed lawsuits under consumer statutes from Feb 01, 2018 to Feb 28, 2018.

  • 2458 BBB Complaints
  • 4439 CFPB Complaints
  • 788 FDCPA, 181 Class Action (23.0%)
  • 296 TCPA, 66 Class Action (22.3%)
  • 422 FCRA, 153 Class Action (36.3%)

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

  • Of those cases, there were about 1302 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
  • Of those plaintiffs, about 435, or (33%), had sued under consumer statutes before.
  • Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 4069 lawsuits since 2001
  • Actions were filed in 147 different US District Court branches.
  • About 744 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

  • 121 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
  • 54 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Central Islip
  • 50 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
  • 48 Lawsuits: California Eastern District Court – Sacramento
  • 42 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
  • 36 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
  • 33 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
  • 29 Lawsuits: Indiana Southern District Court – Indianapolis
  • 28 Lawsuits: Florida Southern District Court – Fort Lauderdale
  • 28 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles

The most active consumer attorneys were:

  • Representing 129 Consumers: THOMAS J CONNICK
  • Representing 52 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 42 Consumers: MOHAMMED OMAR BADWAN
  • Representing 38 Consumers: AHMAD TAYSEER SULAIMAN
  • Representing 38 Consumers: ELLIOT GALE
  • Representing 29 Consumers: MICHAEL JACOB WOOD
  • Representing 29 Consumers: CELETHA CHATMAN
  • Representing 29 Consumers: SARAH MARGARET BARNES
  • Representing 29 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 25 Consumers: JOHN D BLYTHIN

Statistics Year to Date:
2351 total lawsuits for 2018, including:

  • 1603 FDCPA
  • 731 FCRA
  • 611 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs for 2018: 2475 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

  • Representing 129 Consumers: THOMAS J CONNICK
  • Representing 103 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 80 Consumers: MOHAMMED OMAR BADWAN
  • Representing 75 Consumers: AHMAD TAYSEER SULAIMAN
  • Representing 71 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 61 Consumers: TAXIARCHIS HATZIDIMITRIADIS
  • Representing 57 Consumers: ELLIOT GALE
  • Representing 51 Consumers: CELETHA CHATMAN
  • Representing 51 Consumers: SARAH MARGARET BARNES
  • Representing 51 Consumers: MARK A ELDRIDGE

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

There were a total of 2458 BBB complaints against debt collectors and creditors from Feb 01, 2018 to Feb 28, 2018. That is down -10.7% from last month.

The categories of complaints filed were:

  • 1591 Billing/Collection Issues (65%)
  • 725 Problems with Product/Service (29%)
  • 66 Advertising/Sales Issues (3%)
  • 42 Delivery Issues (2%)
  • 21 (1%)
  • 13 Guarantee/Warranty Issues (1%)

The dispositions of these complaints are:

  • 1633 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. (66%)
  • 593 The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction. (24%)
  • 175 The business failed to respond to the dispute. (7%)
  • 26 The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it. (1%)
  • 17 BBB is unable to locate the business. (1%)
  • 14 (1%)

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

There were 4439 complaints filed against debt collectors from Feb 01, 2018 to Feb 28, 2018.

Total number of debt collectors complained about: 870

The types of debt behind the complaints were:

  • 1401 Other debt (32%)
  • 965 I do not know (22%)
  • 831 Credit card debt (19%)
  • 708 Medical debt (16%)
  • 140 Payday loan debt (3%)
  • 125 Auto debt (3%)
  • 100 Mortgage debt (2%)
  • 92 Federal student loan debt (2%)
  • 77 Private student loan debt (2%)

Here is a breakdown of complaints:

  • 1857 Attempts to collect debt not owed (42%)
  • 1129 Written notification about debt (25%)
  • 541 Communication tactics (12%)
  • 411 False statements or representation (9%)
  • 396 Took or threatened to take negative or legal action (9%)
  • 105 Threatened to contact someone or share information improperly (2%)

The top five subissues were:

  • 1034 Debt is not yours (23%)
  • 814 Didnt receive enough information to verify debt (18%)
  • 448 Debt was paid (10%)
  • 319 Attempted to collect wrong amount (7%)
  • 314 Frequent or repeated calls (7%)

The top states complaints were filed from are:

  • 1036 Complaints:
  • 411 Complaints: FL
  • 384 Complaints: CA
  • 368 Complaints: TX
  • 201 Complaints: GA
  • 186 Complaints: NY
  • 153 Complaints: IL
  • 128 Complaints: NC
  • 111 Complaints: NJ
  • 102 Complaints: MI

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

  • 3450 Closed with explanation (78%)
  • 564 Closed with non-monetary relief (13%)
  • 253 In progress (6%)
  • 147 Untimely response (3%)
  • 24 Closed with monetary relief (1%)
  • 1 (0%)

This includes 4202 (95%) timely responses to complaints, and 237 (5%) untimely responses.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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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