While the total number of lawsuits filed during the first eight months of 2015 alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Telephone Windows 10 download Consumer Protection Act, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act are up compared to the same period as last year, the rate of filings is declining, meaning that fewer lawsuits were filed in August than in July, according to data released on Friday night by WebRecon.
More good news for the industry is that the number of complaints filed by consumers related to debt collections was 10% lower in August than in July.
Perhaps most important to collectors is that 34% of all plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit in August had previously filed a suit over similar consumer statutes, according to WebRecon.
What is most interesting is that in the six weeks since the Federal Communications Commission amended the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the number of lawsuits alleging violations has not increased. In fact, the number stayed exactly the same in August as it was in July, and the number of lawsuits filed between January and August 31 of 2015 is only 2% higher than it was at the same time last year, compared with an 18% increase in FDCPA lawsuit filings and a 32% increase in FCRA filings.