$1000 per violator, not per violation

[IOIOIO]

As my last loose end I called a law office to see if I could cash in on my FDCPA violations. As I posted here, most creditors had ceased and desisted when notified. About 4-5 collection agencies had 1-2 violations each, but CIR Law Offices had 7 violations. At statutory damages of $1000 per violation, I thought I had a claim of $7000, but a law office experienced in FDCPA violation suits told me that multiple violations from one agency is considered one violation. The law office said they routinely settle these for the full thousand plus their legal fees, so it would at least be easy money.

Unfortunately, though, they said I should have listed these claims in my Chapter 7 filing, and not doing so could be a problem. I still had room left in my exemptions, but I don't see why I'd want to risk any complications to my discharge to collect $1000. For $7000 it would have been worth it, but that might have put me over my exemption limit. I already threw away the cease and desist letter return receipts for the places that violated me once each, thinking that the 7-time violator was the only one worth pursuing.

After studying this site (and Nolo) and CPO's instructions before filing, this failure to collect on my FDCPA violations was my only mistake as a pro se filer. Everything else went very smoothly. I can't regret failing to list these violations as potential claims in my Ch. 7 filing. If I had, it would have caused problems with my exemption limitations, so I probably wouldn't have bothered trying to collect on these violations in any case, just preferring to get my discharge with no hassles.

But I do recommend to other people to systematically send cease and desist letters and then track their FDCPA violations and also save phone messages whose intent is to collect a debt, regardless of how the phone message tries to conceal that. It's easy money and if your case is already a little complicated this won't add much to it. My case was so simple it just wasn't worth adding any complication to it at all.

[HHM]

That is correct, unfortunately, the case law is that it is $1000 per violator, not per violation. Now, any firm willing to litigate it will of course argue otherwise, and also argue that if there are different KINDS of violation, that you get $1000 per "type" of violation.

Some cases have succeeded to multiply violations if the violations were different in nature (but it is still a long shot). The benefit for the firms is, so long as you show one violate, you get attorney's fees. Also, if the violation is such that there are "actual" damages, then the case can get more interesting.

[IOIOIO]

Yeah, this law office told me that they might be able to get $2000 from each violator if I had phone calls too. It appears that these kinds of damages aren't really meant to compensate the consumer. The best you can do is fill out the unused portion your exemptions, and your creditors have a claim to the excess. And then you have to deal with distributing moneys after your discharge rather than be free and clear. If you can't exempt any of these anticipated future claims, your lawyer gets all the financial benefit from legal costs and you only get the satisfaction of having fought back. In that case it's still worth it because the lawyer does all the work, and I would still accumulate the return receipts from the cease and desist letters because they were mostly effective. But it would be better if a class action was somehow possible. That way some law firm would make a lot of money but the routine violations would stop because the violators would see how much financial incentive the lawyers have to pursue them when they violate so blatantly.