The number of lawsuits alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act continue to drop while lawsuits alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act continue to climb, according to data released today by WebRecon. While those trends have been continuing for some time, a new trend has emerged as the calendar inches closer to 2017. The number of complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against debt collection companies is close to eclipsing last year’s total, when it appeared a few months ago that the total would fall well short of the number of complaints filed in 2015.
Among lawsuits filed in November, 36% of the plaintiffs involved had previously filed suit alleging a violation of the FDCPA, TCPA, or FCRA. Those 36%, or 441 plaintiffs, have collectively filed more than 3,000 lawsuits in the past five years, according to WebRecon.
The total number of lawsuits filed through the end of November is on track to surpass the total number of suits filed last year.
Another interesting trend that started last year and appears set to continue into 2017 is the number of FCRA lawsuits outpacing the number of TCPA lawsuits.