Collection agencies may not necessarily be noticing it, but there continues to be a precipitous drop in the number of lawsuits being filed alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, according to data released yesterday by WebRecon.
Compared with a month before and the same month a year ago, the number of lawsuits were all lower in August, in some cases by as much as 30%. Through the first eight months of 2019, the number of FDCPA allegations is down 10% compared with the same period of 2018, the number of TCPA allegations is down 15%, and the number of FCRA allegations is up 5.1%.
Even the number of complaints filed against collection agencies with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is down 14% on a year-over-year basis.
While the number of lawsuits may be on the decline, the number of “professional” plaintiffs is on the rise. Traditionally, the number of individuals who file a suit in a given month and have done so previously is about 32% or 33%, but in August, was 39%.
Based on the year-to-date totals, it appears as though the totals for FDCPA lawsuits will continue the decline that started in 2016 and the totals for TCPA lawsuits will also be decline for the third straight year. Only FCRA lawsuits look like they will increase over 2018’s totals.
Buried within the TCPA totals is what WebRecon CEO Jack Gordon called a “terrifying” statistic: 41% of all TCPA lawsuits filed in August were putative class actions. That figure was 33% in July.
