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A total of 513 collection firms and creditors were sued between August 16 and August 31, a 46% jump from the total reported in the first two weeks of August, according to WebRecon LLC, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based firm that publishes "The FDCPA Litigant Alert." WebRecon tracks lawsuits involving several consumer statutes, primarily the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Truth-in-Lending Act.
During the two-week period, there were 475 lawsuits involving consumer statutes related to the collection industry. The total included 367 FDCPA lawsuits and another 75 FCRA lawsuits. There were 506 unique plaintiffs and an estimated 104 of them previously filed lawsuits related to the FDCPA, FCRA or other related laws - combining for a total of 706 lawsuits since 2001.
Year-to-date, 6,160 industry-related lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. - including 5,111 citing FDCPA violations and 853 citing FCRA violations.
