FDCPA Lawsuits Stay Steady in Second Half of July

The number of lawsuits filed against ARM companies claiming violations of the FDCPA and other consumer statutes remained about the same in the last two weeks of July compared to the first half of the month.

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

FDCPA and Other Consumer Lawsuit Statistics, July 16-31, 2011

There were about 539 lawsuits filed under consumer statutes in the second half of July 2011. Here is an approximate breakdown:

• 464 FDCPA
• 71 FCRA
• 34 TILA
• 12 TCPA

Summary:

Of those cases, there were about 564 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
Of those plaintiffs, about 186 had sued under consumer statutes before.
Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 1042 lawsuits since 2001
Actions were filed in 115 different US District Court branches.
About 563 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

• 36 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
• 34 Lawsuits: New Jersey District Court – Newark
• 31 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
• 27 Lawsuits: Minnesota District Court – Dmn
• 24 Lawsuits: Colorado District Court – Denver
• 22 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
• 15 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
• 14 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
• 11 Lawsuits: Michigan Western District Court – Southern Division
• 10 Lawsuits: Connecticut District Court – New Haven

The most active consumer attorneys were:

• Representing 20 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 16 Consumers: Darin Shaw
• Representing 15 Consumers: Yaakov Saks
• Representing 14 Consumers: Earl Price Underwood, Jr.
• Representing 13 Consumers: Michael S. Agruss
• Representing 13 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 12 Consumers: Mark L Vavreck
• Representing 11 Consumers: Shireen Hormozdi
• Representing 11 Consumers: Adam Jon Fishbein
• Representing 11 Consumers: Amy Lynn Bennecoff

Statistics Year to Date: 7431 total lawsuits for 2011, including:

• 6,809 FDCPA
• 764 FCRA
• 679 TILA
• 240 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs: 7,456 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

• Representing 211 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 192 Consumers: Craig Thor Kimmel
• Representing 164 Consumers: Jack Dennis Card, Jr.
• Representing 131 Consumers: Darin Shaw
• Representing 126 Consumers: Andrew I Glenn

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.