Having your agency sued is one of the most costly single events that can occur. To make the sting even worse, it can be triggered by the mere uttering of a poorly selected phrase or even word. One way to avoiding this and other legal incursions is to focus on the source from which the majority of lawsuits emit. Jack Gordon, CEO of WebRecon, spends his days accumulating and observing this information and attributes lawsuits to the most active attorneys.
“One thing you can do is be aware of the names on that list,” said Gordon. “Make sure that every collector that is talking to a consumer has a copy of those names. When any of those names from that list are mentioned, that’s a red flag. Not that that’s necessarily a very common thing to happen but boy, I’ll tell you, if going back and reviewing the recording from a lawsuit, if I was dealing with someone who had a Sergei Lemberg come up in the call and that didn’t trigger any kind of management action or review, that would be a really frustrating one. That would have been one that could have been foreseen if not prevented.”
| Top 10 Most Active Attorneys of 2015 By Consumers Represented |
| 1. Todd M. Friedman 2. Craig B. Sanders 3. Sergei Lemberg 4. David H. Krieger 5. Suren N. Weerasuriya 6. Craig Thor Kimmel 7. Adrian Robert Bacon 8. Mohammed Omar Badwan 9. Daniel A. Edelman 10. Amy Lynn Bennecoff Ginsburg |
Training to avoid infractions under such attack is imperative. The best defense is teaching collection professionals the signs of calls meant to bait them into illegal territory. Such a sign is the consumer sounding like he/she is on a speakerphone. A speakerphone would allow a consumer to record the call or share the conversation with their attorney. Collection attorneys have advised collection professionals to hang up or pass the call to a seasoned professional if it is suspected that this tactic is in practice.
Many infractions leading to lawsuits are also fairly common and ones the CFPB has been working to prevent.
“Setting aside the biggest cause of consumer lawsuits being aggressive consumer attorneys marketing their services and recruiting clients, the data [collected by WebRecon] actually shows that false and misleading representation involving the a.) character or amount of the debt, b.) methods used to collect them, c.) threats to take actions that cannot legally be taken are big areas,” said Gordon.
Such a litigious environment can create an uneasy feeling. However, the use of strategically implemented software can help ease the burden and keep collection professionals on the right path in the occasional absence of human guidance. Courtroom proceedings can be more positive for an agency if the proper electronic records are maintained. Gordon recommended software features that could help.
“There are two that come to mind,” said Gordon. “One of them is call recording. That’s gone from a luxury to a necessity. The ability to confirm or rebut consumer allegations I think is definitely a necessity. Even when the agency is in the wrong it would certainly expedite the process of settling suits and getting them out of the way. Another one is call analytics where you can analyze recordings automatically and then have those analytics identify potential problems. Maybe someone forgot to say the mini-Miranda or voices got raised, tensions were high, key words were used. Analytics are able to identify not only potential violations but tension or poor handling of a call and then can systematically address those violations.”
| Top 10 District Courts of 2015 By Lawsuits Filed |
| 939 Illinois Northern - Chicago 671 New York Eastern - Brooklyn 612 Pennsylvania Eastern – Philadelphia 497 California Central – Los Angeles 379 Florida Middle – Tampa 316 New Jersey – Newark 288 New York Eastern – Central Islip 275 California Southern – San Diego 247 Georgia Northern – Atlanta 215 Nevada – Las Vegas |
Being aware of where the danger lies and implementing the correct training will help keep your agency out of one of the top ten courts illustrated in the chart where the most consumer lawsuits were filed.
All statistics are gathered by Web - Recon. This and more is available at dev.webrecon.com/category/fdcpa-casestatistics/.