FDCPA/FCRA Litigation Trending Upward, TCPA & CFPB Complaints Down Slightly

According to data provided by WebRecon LLC, FDCPA litigation is trending up in 2015. Litigation was up 10% over last month, and for the first four months of the year, up 12.5% over the same period a year ago.

FCRA litigation is up 16.6% for the year but down slightly from last month (-3.5%).

TCPA litigation had a large uptick in April (up 23% over the prior month), but still down 12% over the same 4 month period a year ago.

Year to date litigation totals are 4821 total lawsuits for 2015, including:

• 3750 FDCPA
• 964 FCRA
• 905 TCPA

In April, there were 3182 CFPB complaints filed against debt collectors, down a bit from March (-18.7%). But WebRecon believes that the fluctuation might have more to do with the pace of their release rather than actual complaint filing trends.

The complaints fell into the following categories:

• 1355 Cont’d attempts collect debt not owed (43%)
• 587 Disclosure verification of debt (18%)
• 551 Communication tactics (17%)
• 268 False statements or representation (8%)
• 214 Taking/threatening an illegal action (7%)
• 207 Improper contact or sharing of info (7%)

The top five sub-issues were:

• 858 Debt is not mine (27%)
• 368 Not given enough info to verify debt (12%)
• 336 Debt was paid (11%)
• 323 Frequent or repeated calls (10%)
• 188 Attempted to collect wrong amount (6%)

The numbers can vary dramatically from month to month, but this month’s numbers are very similar to last month’s report.