FDCPA Lawsuits Filed by Consumers Continue to Decline in August

The number of lawsuits filed against ARM companies claiming violations of the FDCPA and other consumer statutes fell again in the last two weeks of August after declining in the first half of the month as well.

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

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

There were about 467 lawsuits filed under consumer statutes in the second half of August 2011. Here is an approximate breakdown:

• 400 FDCPA
• 63 FCRA
• 27 TILA
• 13 TCPA

Summary:

• Of those cases, there were about 526 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
• Of those plaintiffs, about 179 had sued under consumer statutes before.
• Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 845 lawsuits since 2001
• Actions were filed in 119 different US District Court branches.
• About 469 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

• 38 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
• 22 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
• 18 Lawsuits: Colorado District Court – Denver
• 18 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
• 17 Lawsuits: California Southern District Court – San Diego
• 17 Lawsuits: New Jersey District Court – Newark
• 15 Lawsuits: New York Southern District Court – Foley Square
• 14 Lawsuits: Florida Middle District Court – Tampa
• 13 Lawsuits: California Northern District Court – San Francisco
• 13 Lawsuits: Florida Southern District Court – Fort Lauderdale

The most active consumer attorneys were:

• Representing 16 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 15 Consumers: John Timblin Flood
• Representing 15 Consumers: Shireen Hormozdi
• Representing 12 Consumers: Deborah P Gutierrez
• Representing 12 Consumers: Lara Ruth Shapiro
• Representing 12 Consumers: Tammy Lee Hussin
• Representing 10 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 10 Consumers: Kenneth E Futch, Jr
• Representing 10 Consumers: Tsarina Branyan
• Representing 10 Consumers: Yaakov Saks

Statistics Year to Date: 8384 total lawsuits for 2011, including:

• 7649 FDCPA
• 896 FCRA
• 732 TILA
• 266 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs: 8368 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

• Representing 232 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 189 Consumers: Craig Thor Kimmel
• Representing 145 Consumers: Darin Shaw
• Representing 144 Consumers: Michael S Agruss
• Representing 143 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg

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.