FDCPA Lawsuit Statistics, July 16-31, 2009 There were about 423 FDCPA cases and 79 FCRA lawsuits in the second half of July. * Of those cases, there were about 528 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit). * Of those plaintiffs, about 117 had sued under FDCPA, FCRA or TCPA before. * Combined, those 117 plaintiffs have filed about 639 lawsuits since 2001 * Actions were filed in 107 different US District Court branches. * About 345 different collection firms were sued. You would think they would learn someday. LOL
It's just the cost of doing business. My guess is that the average FDCPA suit costs a CA on the order of $5,000 to resolve. Some, unfortunately rare, exceptions go into the 6-figures, but by-and-large, the CAs huff and they puff and then settle and go back to fleecing the sheep.
That just depends on what you have on them and how well you can negotiate. I spoke to a man from California this afternoon who has 7 violations on a debt collector and a judgment against him from that same debt collector. The guy hired some consumer protection attorney to prosecute the case for him. The lawyer wants to settle with the debt collector for about 3K. He said the lawyer acts like he is scared of the debt collector and is also talking about maybe they ought to drop their case in return for not having to pay the debt collector's atty fees which are also about 3k at this time. Some consumer protection attorney that is.
My atty told me you can't sue in federal court if the case has already been decided and judgment granted by state. Can you point me to cases where defendant sued over a case that has already been ruled upon?
Ask an attorney the wrong question and you might accidentally get the right answer to the wrong question.The wrong question was most likely whether or not you can sue in federal court to get a state court judgment overturned (or vacated) and you got the right answer to the wrong question. Federal courts do not have the power to overturn a state court judgment. One case where that was tried was presided over by U.S. Federal Magistrate Bristow Marchant. You can google his name and easily come up with that case. The plaintiffs were probably lucky that federal judges can't bang someone over the head with their gavels. Marchant was not a happy camper on that case. (LOL). Had you asked the attorney how it is possible to get a lower court judgment vacated by using federal courts you might have gotten a better answer but I still wouldn't bet on that either. So can it be done at all? Yes, but you have to sue the former plaintiff and or their attorney or both and get them to agree to do it because a federal court can't do it. Probably but the fact that the pro se got them to agree to vacate the case won't be likely to show up as part of the court records because in most cases the defendants demand that a non-disclosure clause be made a part of the settlement agreement. If the plaintiff is sharp enough he will gladly agree to that and make certain that the non-disclosure statement says that neither the case nor the terms of the settlement can be disclosed, discussed or revealed in any manner whatever with any 3rd party except by federal court order. Then the plaintiff disputes the debt and the judgment with the credit bureaus and if it comes back verified he sues them again and/or nails the credit bureaus You have to know how to play that game and most lawyers don't.
