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DISCLAIMER: This article is based on a complaint. The defendant has not responded to the complaint to present its side of the case. The claims mentioned are accusations and should be considered as such until and unless proven otherwise.
If you’ve been listening to any of the compliance or legal webinars on AccountsRecovery.net (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?), a familiar tune has been echoing out across the industry — everything that’s old is new again. Case in point — a class-action lawsuit has been filed against a collection operation for allegedly violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because the letter the plaintiff received had multiple addresses on it and he didn’t know to which one he had to use to send his dispute. The letter was also too confusing because it had too much information in it, and it referenced a law that allegedly does not exist.
A copy of the complaint, removed to the District Court for the District of New Jersey, can be accessed using case number 23-cv-01532 or by clicking here.
The plaintiff received a collection letter from the defendant, attempting to collect on an unpaid credit card debt. In September 2021, the defendant sent the plaintiff a letter. The letter informed the plaintiff that he could dispute the debt in writing within 30 days. The problem, according to the complaint, was the letter had three different addresses on it — one in Utah, one in Virginia, and one in California. The back of the letter, however, had a section marked “DISPUTES” which provided a phone number and an address (different from the three on the front side of the letter), and an email address. This would be confusing to the least sophisticated consumer, according to the complaint, who wouldn’t know where to send the letter, how many disputes to send, and whether he or she had to send a letter and an email or one or the other.
The letter also included an itemization table that listed the Seller, Merchant, Original Creditor, and Creditor to Whom Debt is Owed, which the least sophisticated consumer would also find confusing, according to the complaint. Who is the current creditor, the complaint asks?
The back of the letter also included a disclosure that informed the plaintiff “NOTICE: If this account is eligible to be reported to the credit reporting agencies by our company, we are required by law to notify you that a negative credit report reflecting on your credit records may be submitted to a credit reporting agency if you fail to fulfill the terms of your credit obligation.” What law requires that, the complaint alleges.
Two weeks later, the defendant sent another letter to the plaintiff, which overshadowed the plaintiff’s validation rights, according to the complaint.