FDCPA Lawsuits Fall Slightly in First Half of August

The number of lawsuits filed against ARM companies claiming violations of the FDCPA and other consumer statutes fell slightly in the first two weeks of August compared to the last half of July.

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

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

There were about 492 lawsuits filed under consumer statutes in the first half of August 2011. Here is an approximate breakdown:

• 441 FDCPA
• 69 FCRA
• 26 TILA
• 13 TCPA

Summary:

• Of those cases, there were about 529 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
• Of those plaintiffs, about 169 had sued under consumer statutes before.
• Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 966 lawsuits since 2001
• Actions were filed in 106 different US District Court branches.
• About 492 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

• 33 Lawsuits: Colorado District Court – Denver
• 25 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
• 24 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
• 24 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
• 21 Lawsuits: New Jersey District Court – Newark
• 19 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
• 16 Lawsuits: Minnesota District Court – Dmn
• 14 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
• 12 Lawsuits: Arizona District Court – Phoenix
• 12 Lawsuits: Michigan Western District Court – Southern Division

The most active consumer attorneys were:

• Representing 16 Consumers: Shireen Hormozdi
• Representing 13 Consumers: Adam Jon Fishbein
• Representing 11 Consumers: Jill Gookin
• Representing 11 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 11 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 10 Consumers: Michael S Agruss
• Representing 10 Consumers: Amy Lynn Bennecoff
• Representing 10 Consumers: Yaakov Saks
• Representing 8 Consumers: Jack Dennis Card, Jr.
• Representing 7 Consumers: Ryan Scott Lee

Statistics Year to Date

7923 total lawsuits for 2011, including:

• 7249 FDCPA
• 833 FCRA
• 705 TILA
• 253 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs: 7896 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year

• Representing 222 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 188 Consumers: Craig Thor Kimmel
• Representing 172 Consumers: Jack Dennis Card, Jr.
• Representing 137 Consumers: Darin Shaw
• Representing 135 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.