Could it be that lawsuits alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act are falling out of favor with consumer attorneys?
That is one possible explanation why the number of suits involving those statutes continue to drop on a monthly basis, according to data released yesterday by WebRecon.
Through the first 10 months of 2017, the number of FDCPA suits is down 7% on a year-over-year basis from 2016. The number of TCPA lawsuits is down nearly 10% from 2016, according to WebRecon.
For the first time since WebRecon started tracking TCPA lawsuits back in 2010, it appears as though 2017 will be the first year where the number of lawsuits filed is lower than the year before.
The news isn’t all rosy for the ARM industry. The number of lawsuits alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act are up 12% from last year. As well, the number of complaints levied with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against collection agencies by consumers is up more than 20% from last year. There have been more than 41,000 complaints filed in 2017.
Like most months, nearly one-third of all lawsuits were filed by individuals who have filed at least one suit previously under these statutes. Those “frequent” filers have filed nearly 2,400 lawsuits dating back to 2001, according to WebRecon.
