Summer vacation started early this year for consumer attorneys and professional plaintiffs.
The number of complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as well as the number of lawsuits filed alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Telephone Consumer Protection Act were lower in June than a month earlier, according to data provided by WebRecon. And in the case of CFPB complaints, the number was markedly lower in June than it was in May.
Notwithstanding the drop in June’s figures, the year-to-date total for CFPB complaints is 21% higher than it was a year ago, and the number of TCPA lawsuits is up 4% on a year-over-year basis. The number of lawsuits alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act are also higher than last year, while the number of FDCPA lawsuits are down 3% from the first six months of 2016.
For the most part, the number of lawsuits filed and the number of complaints filed with the CFPB has remained relatively constant. The number of lawsuits filed for alleged violations of the FDCPA, TCPA, and FCRA are all within 200 of the totals from last year, which indicates that the problem is not getting any worse, and it’s not going away.
“Moral of the story… there is very little comprehensible pattern to be discerned, beyond the fact that the overarching pattern seems to be pretty steady in spite of the monthly ups and downs,” said WebRecon CEO Jack Gordon.
One class-action lawsuit was enough to jump Christopher Boss to the top of the list for the most active consumer attorneys in June. His one lawsuit has 74 plaintiffs. Craig Sanders is the lawyer with the most plaintiffs represented through the first half of 2017, with 314.
The 9,639 lawsuits that were filed during the first six months of 2017 were done so by 7,865 plaintiffs. Nearly one-third of those who filed a lawsuit in June had done so previously, according to WebRecon’s data.
