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Quick analysis: Happy New Year… for Plaintiffs

It looks like 2017 is starting off with a litigation uptick across the board.

FDCPA: Jan was up 4.3% over (prev month) Dec, and 4.1% over (previous year) Jan 2016
TCPA: Jan was up 11% over (prev month) Dec, and 11.7% over (previous year) Jan 2016
FCRA: Jan was up a whopping 48.6% over (prev month) Dec, and 47% over (previous year) Jan 2016

Crazy coincidence… Jan 2017 looks an awful lot like Jan 2016. Cosmic interference?

Class actions are on the high-ish end of normal with 18.2% of FDCPA, 26.1 of TCPA and 26.1 of FCRA lawsuits filed that way.

About 35% of all plaintiffs who filed in January had filed at least once before.

And finally, Las Vegas attorney David Krieger takes the prize for the representing the most consumer plaintiffs (67) in January.

Comparisons: Current Period: Previous Period: Previous Year Comp:
Jan 01, 2017
Jan 31, 2017		 Dec 01, 2016
Dec 31, 2016		 Jan 01, 2016
Jan 31, 2016
CFPB Complaints  3410 3650 -6.6% 2970 14.8%
FDCPA lawsuits  819 785 4.3% 787 4.1%
FCRA lawsuits  416 280 48.6% 283 47.0%
TCPA lawsuits  402 362 11.0% 360 11.7%
YTD CFPB Complaints  3410 2970 14.8%
YTD FDCPA lawsuits  819 787 4.1%
YTD FCRA lawsuits  416 283 47.0%
YTD TCPA lawsuits  402 360 11.7%

 

Complaint Statistics:

3410 consumers filed CFPB complaints against debt collectors and about 1425 consumers filed lawsuits under consumer statutes from Jan 01, 2017 to Jan 31, 2017. Here is an approximate breakdown:

  • 3410 CFPB Complaints
  • 819 FDCPA, 149 Class Action (18.2%)
  • 402 TCPA, 105 Class Action (26.1%)
  • 416 FCRA, 39 Class Action (9.4%)

Litigation Summary (scroll down for CFPB data):

  • Of those cases, there were about 1425 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
  • Of those plaintiffs, about 501, or (35%), had sued under consumer statutes before.
  • Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 2318 lawsuits since 2001
  • Actions were filed in 153 different US District Court branches.
  • About 1005 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

  • 104 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
  • 94 Lawsuits: Nevada District Court – Las Vegas
  • 75 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Los Angeles
  • 57 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
  • 54 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
  • 41 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
  • 39 Lawsuits: Florida Southern District Court – Fort Lauderdale
  • 38 Lawsuits: New Jersey District Court – Newark
  • 37 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Central Islip
  • 37 Lawsuits: Indiana Southern District Court – Indianapolis

The most active consumer attorneys were:

  • Representing 67 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
  • Representing 58 Consumers: TODD M FRIEDMAN
  • Representing 53 Consumers: AHMAD TAYSEER SULAIMAN
  • Representing 47 Consumers: ELLIOT WAYNE GALE
  • Representing 41 Consumers: MOHAMMED OMAR BADWAN
  • Representing 40 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 38 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 36 Consumers: ADRIAN ROBERT BACON
  • Representing 28 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
  • Representing 25 Consumers: JOHN D BLYTHIN

Statistics Year to Date:
1389 total lawsuits for 2017, including:

  • 819 FDCPA
  • 416 FCRA
  • 402 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs for 2017: 1425 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

  • Representing 67 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
  • Representing 58 Consumers: TODD M FRIEDMAN
  • Representing 53 Consumers: AHMAD TAYSEER SULAIMAN
  • Representing 47 Consumers: ELLIOT WAYNE GALE
  • Representing 41 Consumers: MOHAMMED OMAR BADWAN
  • Representing 40 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 38 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 36 Consumers: ADRIAN ROBERT BACON
  • Representing 28 Consumers: MATTHEW THOMAS BERRY
  • Representing 25 Consumers: JOHN D BLYTHIN

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

There were 3410 complaints filed against debt collectors from Jan 01, 2017 to Jan 31, 2017.

Total number of debt collectors complained about: 784

The types of debt behind the complaints were:

  • 1203 Other (i.e. phone, health club, etc.) (35%)
  • 619 I do not know (18%)
  • 585 Medical (17%)
  • 582 Credit card (17%)
  • 126 Payday loan (4%)
  • 100 Auto (3%)
  • 81 Mortgage (2%)
  • 58 Non-federal student loan (2%)
  • 56 Federal student loan (2%)

Here is a breakdown of complaints:

  • 1447 Contd attempts collect debt not owed (42%)
  • 943 Disclosure verification of debt (28%)
  • 417 Communication tactics (12%)
  • 252 False statements or representation (7%)
  • 200 Improper contact or sharing of info (6%)
  • 151 Taking/threatening an illegal action (4%)

The top five subissues were:

  • 816 Debt is not mine (24%)
  • 708 Not given enough info to verify debt (21%)
  • 401 Debt was paid (12%)
  • 276 Frequent or repeated calls (8%)
  • 207 Attempted to collect wrong amount (6%)

The top states complaints were filed from are:

  • 479 Complaints: CA
  • 398 Complaints: TX
  • 334 Complaints: FL
  • 206 Complaints: GA
  • 169 Complaints: IL
  • 160 Complaints: NY
  • 107 Complaints: OH
  • 94 Complaints: NJ
  • 90 Complaints: PA
  • 88 Complaints: MD

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

  • 3410 (100%)

This includes 3196 (94%) timely responses to complaints, and 214 (6%) untimely responses.

Of the company responses, consumers accepted 0 (%) of them, disputed 485 (14%) of them, and 2925 (86%) were N\A.

The top five days for complaints were:

  • 177 Complaints: Tue, 01/24/2017
  • 172 Complaints: Thu, 01/26/2017
  • 167 Complaints: Tue, 01/31/2017
  • 150 Complaints: Wed, 01/11/2017
  • 150 Complaints: Thu, 01/19/2017

 

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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.