FDCPA Lawsuits Soar in Second Half of September

Lawsuits filed against ARM companies claiming violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) jumped in the second half of September.

The very significant spike in consumers represented in FDCPA, FCRA and TILA suits during this period are almost entirely due to two attorneys – Feng Li and Joshua Shelton.

New Jersey’s Feng Li has filed a small handful of consumer lawsuits in the past, but in this two week period filed 23 lawsuits representing a total of 195 consumers – 36 of them are plaintiffs in two lawsuits and 11 of them are plaintiffs in three lawsuits.

Southern California attorney Joshua Shelton is making his first appearance in our consumer litigation database, filing one Truth-in-Lending lawsuit with 109 plaintiffs.

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

FDCPA and Other Consumer Lawsuit Statistics, September 16-30, 2011

There were about 643 lawsuits filed under consumer statutes in the second half of September 2011. Here is an approximate breakdown:

• 804 FDCPA
• 419 TILA
• 349 FCRA
• 25 TCPA

Summary:

• Of those cases, there were about 973 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
• Of those plaintiffs, about 243 had sued under consumer statutes before.
• Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 1631 lawsuits since 2001
• Actions were filed in 148 different US District Court branches.
• About 697 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

• 46 Lawsuits: New Jersey District Court – Newark
• 34 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
• 32 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
• 31 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
• 27 Lawsuits: Colorado District Court – Denver
• 19 Lawsuits: Michigan Eastern District Court – Detroit
• 17 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
• 17 Lawsuits: Florida Southern District Court – Miami
• 16 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
• 15 Lawsuits: Florida Southern District Court – Fort Lauderdale

The most active consumer attorneys were:

• Representing 253 Consumers: Feng Li
• Representing 109 Consumers: Joshua P Shelton
• Representing 26 Consumers: Jack Dennis Card, Jr
• Representing 21 Consumers: Al Mczeal
• Representing 20 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 19 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 14 Consumers: David J Philipps
• Representing 13 Consumers: Dale Wood Pittman
• Representing 13 Consumers: Yaakov Saks
• Representing 13 Consumers: Michael S Agruss

Statistics Year to Date

9550 total lawsuits for 2011, including:

• 8910 FDCPA
• 1335 FCRA
• 1187 TILA
• 303 TCPA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs: 9748 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

• Representing 263 Consumers: David Michael Larson
• Representing 255 Consumers: Feng Li
• Representing 207 Consumers: Craig Thor Kimmel
• Representing 170 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 164 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.