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A total of 519 collection agencies and creditors were sued in the first half of October in legal action filed under consumer statutes, most of which involved the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) - totaling 356 cases - and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) - totaling 55.
Year-to-date through October 15, there have been 6,225 FDCPA lawsuits filed and another 959 FCRA lawsuits, according to WebRecon LLC, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based company that published ""The FDCPA Litigant Alert."
Of the lawsuits filed in the first half of October, there were an estimated 520 unique plaintiffs, with multiple plaintiffs in one case. A total of 136 plaintiffs had sued under consumer statues before, filing 915 lawsuits since 2001. WebRecon tracks several other consumer statutes beyond the FDCPA and FCRA, including the Truth-in-Lending Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The most active courts for the various consumer statute lawsuits include the Illinois Northern District Court in Chicago, with 41 lawsuits in the first half of October; and the California Central District Court in Los Angeles, with 26 lawsuits.
