FDCPA Lawsuits On The Rise
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act lawsuits make up a steady volume of civil court cases. In March, 2013, 993 cases representing 1,063 plaintiffs were filed in U.S. District Courts for FDCPA violations. This is a 6% increase over February, and an 8% increase over FDCPA lawsuits filed in March of the previous year. All of these statistics come from the FDCPA Case Listing Service, which is maintained by the government.Five states composed 44% of all the FDCPA plaintiffs in the U.S. in March: New York (with 106 cases), California (104), Illinois (81), Pennsylvania (81) and Florida (64). In February, the highest concentrations of plaintiffs who filed multiple FDCPA lawsuits were located in the Districts of Illinois Northern, Wisconsin Eastern, New York Eastern, Florida Southern and Colorado. One of the reasons these districts saw more activity is that they house a high concentration of debt collection agencies.If a collection agency has harassed you, you may be entitled to money damages up to $1,000.00, based on the FDCPA, which has been around for almost 35 years. The FDCPA is a federal law that applies to every state. In other words, everyone is protected by the FDCPA. The FDCPA is essentially a laundry list of what debt collectors can and cannot do while collecting a debt, as well as things debt collectors must do while collecting a debt. Plus, the FDCPA has a fee-shift provision. This means, the collection agency pays your attorney’s fees and costs. Founding attorney, Michael Agruss, has settled over 1,500 debt collection harassment cases. We want to help you, too.