FDCPA and Other Consumer Rights Lawsuit Statistics for July 1-15

Grand Rapids, MI – The following statistics are provided to the ARM industry courtesy of WebRecon LLC.

Important Note: We have modified our workflow and improved some of our data searching capabilities, meaning we will have more accurate statistics beginning with this update. This means some categories of statutes, such as TCPA, will be better represented in our stats than they were before. This is because TCPA is not usually listed as a primary cause of action, but may be buried deeper in the complaint. We are now doing a better job of capturing those secondary causes. For this reason, year-to-year comparisons going forward may lose some accuracy.

FDCPA and Other Consumer Rights Lawsuit Statistics, July 1-15, 2010

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

• 393 Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
• 47 Fair Credit Reporting Act
• 11 Telephone Consumer Protection Act
• 18 Truth In Lending Act
• 1 Bankruptcy Related 
• 1 Credit Repair Organizations Act
• 2 Driver’s Privacy Protection Act
• 6 Electronic Fund Transfers Act
• 1 Home Ownership And Equity Protection Act
• 1 Personal Injury
• 2 State of Alabama Consumer Statutes
• 28 State of California Consumer Statutes
• 4 State of Connecticut Consumer Statutes
• 9 State of Florida Consumer Statutes
• 3 State of Georgia Consumer Statutes
• 1 State of Iowa Consumer Statutes
• 2 State of Michigan Consumer Statutes
• 1 State of New York Consumer Statutes
• 2 State of Pennsylvania Consumer Statutes
• 1 State of South Carolina Consumer Statutes
• 2 State of Texas Consumer Statutes
• 4 State of West Virginia Consumer Statutes
• 11 Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act 
• 1 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act

Summary:

• Of those cases, there were about 434 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
• Of those plaintiffs, about 122 had sued under consumer statutes before.
• Combined, those 122 plaintiffs have filed about 851 lawsuits since 2001
• Actions were filed in 109 different US District Court branches.
• About 389 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

• 24 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
• 21 Lawsuits: Minnesota District Court – DMN
• 20 Lawsuits: Colorado District Court – Denver
• 20 Lawsuits: Florida Southern District Court – Fort Lauderdale
• 16 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
• 15 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
• 12 Lawsuits: Florida Southern District Court – Miami
• 12 Lawsuits: Indiana Southern District Court – Indianapolis
• 11 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
• 10 Lawsuits: Michigan Eastern District Court – Detroit

The most active consumer attorneys were:

• Representing 20 Consumers: Brent F. Vullings
• Representing 18 Consumers: Jack Dennis Card, Jr
• Representing 15 Consumers: Michael S Agruss
• Representing 15 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 13 Consumers: David M. Marco
• Representing 12 Consumers: Donald A. Yarbrough
• Representing 12 Consumers: Todd Michael Friedman
• Representing 10  Consumers: Joshua R. Trigstead
• Representing 10  Consumers: Mark L. Vavreck
• Representing 8  Consumers: Nicholas J. Bontrager

Statistics Year to Date

6194 total lawsuits for 2010, including:

• 5823 FDCPA
• 642 FCRA
• 47  TCPA
• 312  TILA (Truth in Lending Act)

Number of unique Plaintiffs: 6051 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

• Representing 202 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 189 Consumers: Brent F. Vullings
• Representing 150 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 145 Consumers: Todd Michael Friedman
• Representing 139 Consumers: Ryan Scott Lee

About WebRecon LLC
Creditors and collection firms use WebRecon’s (www.webrecon.com) 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.