FDCPA Lawsuits Fall Again in First Half of January

Lawsuits filed by consumers claiming violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) are starting the year off slow (377 this period compared to 431 in the same period last year). Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) suits appear to be continuing the growth seen in the latter part of 2011 (66 this period compared to 57 in the same period last year).

Lawsuits claiming violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) were down year-over-year (18 this period compared to 27 in the same period last year). However, look for TCPA to become more of a threat in coming months due to a favorable court decision last week that will almost certainly result in more TCPA lawsuits filed in US District Courts.

18 percent of plaintiffs this period were repeat litigants, and the most active attorney was Sergei Lemberg, representing 16 consumers.

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

FDCPA and Other Consumer Lawsuit Statistics, January 1-15, 2012

There were about 409 lawsuits filed under consumer statutes in the first half of January 2012. Here is an approximate breakdown:

• 377 FDCPA
• 66 FCRA
• 18 TCPA
• 48 TILA

Summary:

• Of those cases, there were about 465 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
• Of those plaintiffs, about 129, or 18%, had sued under consumer statutes before.
• Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 749 lawsuits since 2001
• Actions were filed in 121 different US District Court branches.
• About 447 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

• 21 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
• 18 Lawsuits: Colorado District Court – Denver
• 17 Lawsuits: Minnesota District Court – Dmn
• 16 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
• 14 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
• 12 Lawsuits: California Southern District Court – San Diego
• 11 Lawsuits: New York Western District Court – Buffalo
• 10 Lawsuits: Texas Northern District Court – Dallas
• 9 Lawsuits: New Jersey District Court – Newark
• 9 Lawsuits: Connecticut District Court – New Haven

The most active consumer attorneys were:

• Representing 16 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 15 Consumers: Joseph M Meinhardt
• Representing 12 Consumers: Craig T Kimmel
• Representing 12 Consumers: Michael D Shaffer
• Representing 9 Consumers: Tammy L Hussin
• Representing 8 Consumers: Samuel A Ehrenfeld
• Representing 7 Consumers: Brad J Davidzik
• Representing 7 Consumers: Jody B Burton
• Representing 7 Consumers: Alex D Weisberg
• Representing 7 Consumers: David J Philipps

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.