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Quick analysis: Well, it looks like 2019 begins with a screech out of the gates. In January, all three of the main consumer statutes we track (FDCPA, TCPA, FCRA) were up significantly over December 2018. But only FCRA was also up over January 2018 as well.

FDCPA was up +25.8% over Dec, but down -11.9% compared to January 2018.
TCPA was up +35.4% over Dec, but down -4.1% compared to January 2018.
FCRA was up +8.8% over Dec, and also up +12.6% compared to January 2018.

What does it mean? The year started fairly strong for consumer litigation, but probably not strong enough to break recent trends.

BBB and BCFP complaints both dramatically increased in 2018, but have so far started the year fairly slowly (ignore the current numbers in our grid, the numbers for those two categories are never really all in until 30-60 days after the end of the month).

In other news, putative class actions were pretty typical last month with 25% of FDCPA, 28.1% of TCPA and 4.9% of FCRA lawsuits filed that way.

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

And finally, Delaware FCRA attorney Antranig Garibian represented more consumers than anyone else in January (51). Since there has only been one month so far, he takes the crown for most lawsuits of the year as well.

Is your collection agency or call center protected
against serial litigants? Read more Here!

 

Current Month: Previous Month: Previous
Year:		 Year to Date: Year to
Date Comp:
Jan 01, 2019
Jan 31, 2019		 Dec 01, 2018
Dec 31, 2018		 Jan 01, 2018
Jan 31, 2018		 Jan 01, 2019
Jan 31, 2019		 Jan 01, 2018
Jan 31, 2018
BBB  1966 2992 -34.3% 5701 -65.5% 1966 5701 -65.5%
BCFP  3108 3309 -6.1% 4996 -37.8% 3108 4996 -37.8%
FDCPA  717 570 25.8% 814 -11.9% 717 814 -11.9%
FCRA  348 320 8.8% 309 12.6% 348 309 12.6%
TCPA  302 223 35.4% 315 -4.1% 302 315 -4.1%

 

Complaint Statistics:

1966 consumers filed BBB complaints, 3108 consumers filed BCFP complaints, and about 1191 consumers filed lawsuits under consumer statutes from Jan 01, 2019 to Jan 31, 2019.

  • 1966 BBB Complaints
  • 3108 BCFP Complaints
  • 717 FDCPA, 179 Class Action (25.0%)
  • 302 TCPA, 85 Class Action (28.1%)
  • 348 FCRA, 17 Class Action (4.9%)

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

  • Of those cases, there were about 1191 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
  • Of those plaintiffs, about 395, or (33%), had sued under consumer statutes before.
  • Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 2432 lawsuits since 2001
  • Actions were filed in 158 different US District Court branches.
  • About 765 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

  • 81 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
  • 51 Lawsuits: Delaware District Court – Wilmington
  • 48 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
  • 46 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
  • 39 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
  • 39 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Central Islip
  • 38 Lawsuits: Indiana Southern District Court – Indianapolis
  • 37 Lawsuits: New Jersey District Court – Newark
  • 36 Lawsuits: Nevada District Court – Las Vegas
  • 35 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles

The most active consumer attorneys were:

  • Representing 51 Consumers: ANTRANIG N GARIBIAN
  • Representing 33 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 30 Consumers: TAXIARCHIS HATZIDIMITRIADIS
  • Representing 29 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 27 Consumers: YAAKOV SAKS
  • Representing 25 Consumers: DAVID SCOTT KLAIN
  • Representing 25 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
  • Representing 22 Consumers: SERGEI LEMBERG
  • Representing 22 Consumers: DAVID M BARSHAY
  • Representing 20 Consumers: JOHN D BLYTHIN

Statistics Year to Date:
1180 total lawsuits for 2019, including:

  • 717 FDCPA
  • 348 FCRA
  • 302 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs for 2019: 1191 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

  • Representing 51 Consumers: ANTRANIG N GARIBIAN
  • Representing 33 Consumers: NATHAN CHARLES VOLHEIM
  • Representing 30 Consumers: TAXIARCHIS HATZIDIMITRIADIS
  • Representing 29 Consumers: CRAIG B SANDERS
  • Representing 27 Consumers: YAAKOV SAKS
  • Representing 25 Consumers: DAVID SCOTT KLAIN
  • Representing 25 Consumers: DAVID H KRIEGER
  • Representing 22 Consumers: SERGEI LEMBERG
  • Representing 22 Consumers: DAVID M BARSHAY
  • Representing 20 Consumers: JOHN D BLYTHIN

Is your collection agency or call center protected
against serial litigants? Read more Here!

 

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

There were a total of 1966 BBB complaints from Jan 01, 2019 to Jan 31, 2019. That is down -34.3% from last month.

The types of companies being complained about were:

  • 1342 collections-agencies (68%)
  • 527 banks (27%)
  • 97 credit+reporting (5%)

The categories of complaints filed were:

  • 1373 Billing/Collection Issues (70%)
  • 526 Problems with Product/Service (27%)
  • 32 Delivery Issues (2%)
  • 29 Advertising/Sales Issues (1%)
  • 6 Guarantee/Warranty Issues (0%)

The dispositions of these complaints are:

  • 1320 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. (67%)
  • 526 The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction. (27%)
  • 77 The business failed to respond to the dispute. (4%)
  • 41 BBB is unable to locate the business. (2%)
  • 2 The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it. (0%)

——————————————————————————————————-
BCFP Complaint Statistics:

There were 3108 complaints filed against debt collectors from Jan 01, 2019 to Jan 31, 2019.

Total number of debt collectors complained about: 718

The types of debt behind the complaints were:

  • 871 Other debt (28%)
  • 700 I do not know (23%)
  • 663 Credit card debt (21%)
  • 494 Medical debt (16%)
  • 122 Auto debt (4%)
  • 84 Payday loan debt (3%)
  • 72 Mortgage debt (2%)
  • 54 Federal student loan debt (2%)
  • 48 Private student loan debt (2%)

Here is a breakdown of complaints:

  • 1583 Attempts to collect debt not owed (51%)
  • 623 Written notification about debt (20%)
  • 296 Took or threatened to take negative or legal action (10%)
  • 280 Communication tactics (9%)
  • 250 False statements or representation (8%)
  • 76 Threatened to contact someone or share information improperly (2%)

The top five subissues were:

  • 763 Debt is not yours (25%)
  • 474 Debt was result of identity theft (15%)
  • 420 Didnt receive enough information to verify debt (14%)
  • 287 Debt was paid (9%)
  • 204 Attempted to collect wrong amount (7%)

The top states complaints were filed from are:

  • 521 Complaints: TX
  • 348 Complaints: CA
  • 323 Complaints: FL
  • 164 Complaints: GA
  • 151 Complaints: NY
  • 97 Complaints: IL
  • 89 Complaints: PA
  • 89 Complaints: NC
  • 85 Complaints: OH
  • 83 Complaints: AZ

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

  • 2397 Closed with explanation (77%)
  • 347 In progress (11%)
  • 268 Closed with non-monetary relief (9%)
  • 78 Untimely response (3%)
  • 18 Closed with monetary relief (1%)

This includes 2997 (96%) timely responses to complaints, and 111 (4%) untimely responses.

WebRecon LLC is a part of the Americloud Holdings LLC family of companies. (855) WEB-RECON

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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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