Plaintiff’s attorneys and professional plaintiffs appeared to take vacations in September, filing significantly fewer lawsuits against collection agencies alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act, according to data released on Friday by WebRecon.
The number of lawsuits filed in September — 1,225 — was 28% lower than the 1,702 that were filed in August, according to WebRecon. Broken down, the number of FDCPA lawsuits was 30% lower, the number of FCRA suits was 22% lower, and the number of TCPA lawsuits was 32% lower, on a month-over-month basis.
Through the first three quarters of 2018, only the number of FCRA lawsuits is up, compared with the same period a year ago — by 4%. The number of FDCPA suits is down 7% and the number of TCPA suits is down 14% on a year-over-year basis. The number of complaints filed with the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection is up 10%, while the number of complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau is down 1% on a year-over-year basis.
Projecting out for the rest of 2018, WebRecon’s CEO Jack Gordon says the industry might be looking at a 5% drop in the number of lawsuits between 2017 and 2018, which “is not huge, but is not insignificant either.” The number of lawsuits filed on a year-over-year basis dropped 0.6% from 2015 to 2016, and 1.1% from 2016 to 2017. A 5% drop would represent the largest year-over-year decline in some time.
The number of individuals who had previously filed suits and did so again in September was higher than normal. In a given month, about 32% or 33% of filers have done so in the past, but in September, that figure was 37%, WebRecon reported.
