March closures have not had significant impact on industry-related filings, according to latest WebRecon report.
4/24/2020 9:00
Many courts across the U.S. started to change their schedules and proceedings in March in response to COVID-19; but there hasn’t been a significant change in consumer litigation filing trends, at least for now, according to the latest litigation filing and consumer complaints report from WebRecon.
"After a brief slowdown in the first half of the month, [the] FDCPA ended up down only -3.3 % from February, [the] FCRA only -3.6% and [the] TCPA -7.7%. That is shocking. Even as most of the country was shutting down, consumer litigation barely missed a beat," WebRecon CEO Jack Gordon noted in the report.
Year-to-date litigation filings for the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Telephone Consumer Protection Act increased.
There were 1,086 filings for the FCRA from Jan. 1 through March 31, 2019 compared to 1,307 from Jan. 1 through March 31, 2020, a 20.3 % increase, according to the report.
TCPA filings show a 23 % increase comparing Jan. 1 through March 31, 2019 to that time this year. There were 858 and 1,055 filings under the TCPA, respectively.
Year-to-date FDCPA filings did decrease, however, by 10.2% or from 2,100 to 1,885, according to the report.
Court closures and delays continued in April, yet it remains to be seen how the continued changes will impact case filings.
Meanwhile, complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau increased 5.2% from February 2020 to March 2020. Year-to-date complaints increased 6.5 %.