FDCPA Lawsuits Fall Again in First Half of November

Lawsuits filed against ARM companies claiming violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and other statutes fell slightly in the first two weeks of November after a similar drop in the second half of October.

The following statistics are provided to the ARM industry courtesy of WebRecon LLC.

FDCPA and Other Consumer Lawsuit Statistics, November 1-15, 2011

There were about 536 lawsuits filed under consumer statutes in the first half of November 2011. Here is an approximate breakdown:

• 472 FDCPA
• 84 FCRA
• 11 TCPA
• 26 TILA

Summary:

• Of those cases, there were about 553 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
• Of those plaintiffs, about 172 had sued under consumer statutes before.
• Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 912 lawsuits since 2001
• Actions were filed in 116 different US District Court branches.
• About 474 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

• 40 Lawsuits: New Jersey District Court – Newark
• 34 Lawsuits: Minnesota District Court – Dmn
• 28 Lawsuits: Colorado District Court – Denver
• 27 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
• 20 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
• 19 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
• 18 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Central Islip
• 16 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
• 16 Lawsuits: Michigan Eastern District Court – Detroit
• 14 Lawsuits: New York Western District Court – Buffalo

The most active consumer attorneys were:

• Representing 31 Consumers: Yaakov Saks
• Representing 28 Consumers: Mark L Vavreck
• Representing 21 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 20 Consumers: Mark H Rephen
• Representing 15 Consumers: Gary D Nitzkin
• Representing 13 Consumers: Craig Thor Kimmel
• Representing 12 Consumers: Penny Hays Cauley
• Representing 12 Consumers: Shireen Hormozdi
• Representing 10 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 9 Consumers: Deborah P Gutierrez

Statistics Year to Date

11,176 total lawsuits for 2011, including:

• 10,402 FDCPA
• 1656 FCRA
• 419 TCPA
• 1342 TILA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs: 11214 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

• Representing 314 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 299 Consumers: Feng Li
• Representing 218 Consumers: Craig T Kimmel
• Representing 214 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 176 Consumers: Michael S Agruss

Creditors and collection firms use WebRecon’s services to easily segregate predictably litigious consumers from their databases. A significant percentage of consumer litigation is initiated by the same consumers over and over again, and screening them out of the general population can reduce lawsuits by as much as a third.