The U.S Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently affirmed dismissal of a consumer’s suit against a debt collector, alleging that its collection letter violated the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In so ruling, the Court concluded that the debt collector’s use of the term “PROFESSIONAL DEBT COLLECTORS” and the initials of its “doing business as” name would not mislead or deceive an “unsophisticated consumer,” and the letter’s inclusion of a signature of an individual not registered to collect debts in Minnesota was irrelevant and did not violate section 1692f, because the collection company and two other signatories…
Posts published in “FDCPA”
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today released its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to implement the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Years in the making, the proposed rules if adopted would bring significant changes to the form and manner of debt collector communications to consumers, credit reporting and litigation activity. Interested parties will have 90 days from publication in the Federal Register to submit comments to the rules. The rules are available here. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking covers a wide array of material; we look at a few of the most significant proposals below. Call Frequency Cap The NPRM would…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently ruled that an offer to “resolve” a debt without disclosing its time-barred status may be deceptive or misleading under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) even in the absence of an express threat of litigation. A copy of the opinion in Holzman v. Malcolm S. Gerald & Assocs., Inc. is available at: Link to Opinion. The letter at issue stated the debt collector wanted to “resolve” the consumer’s account by accepting a reduced amount by a specific date. The consumer filed a lawsuit alleging the letter was false and misleading in…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a debt collection letter that informs the consumer of the total, present quantity of his or her debt satisfies section 1692g of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) notwithstanding its failure to inform the consumer of the debt’s constituent components or the precise rates by which it might later increase. The Court further held that such a letter does not violate section 1692e of the FDCPA for failure to inform the consumer that his or her balance might increase due to interest or fees when the letter…
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida recently denied a consumer’s motion for class certification in a putative class action against a debt collector. In so ruling, the Court concluded that the plaintiff consumer’s proposed class — which included members who did not make payments to the debt collector while also seeking actual damages as to proposed members who did make payments — presented individual issues concerning causation as to actual payments made in response to the collection letters at issue, and thus failed to overcome the predominance requirement under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3). A copy…
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its much-anticipated opinion in Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP on March 20, ruling the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not cover persons engaged in “non-judicial foreclosures” except with respect to a single provision contained in the FDCPA. Colorado, like many western states, has a procedure that allows a lender to foreclose property without the need to file a lawsuit. Here, as you may recall, a Colorado borrower defaulted on his home loan and the mortgage servicer hired a law firm to pursue a non-judicial foreclosure. The borrower informed the law firm he was disputing…
An entity whose principal business is to purchase debt, but did not itself collect the debt it purchased, was found to be a debt collector subject to the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), even though the collection activity was undertaken by other entities. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals reached this decision by expanding the scope of the statute’s liability so far that it now falls into conflict with itself. Put another way, a creditor can be a debt collector of its own performing debt which it assigned to a third party to collect. But the third party…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed a trial court judgment in favor of a borrower and against a debt collector, and ruled that reporting to a credit reporting agency that a debtor owed nine unpaid bills of $60 instead of one unpaid bill of $540 did not misstate the character of the debt in violation of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). A copy of the opinion in Rhone v. Medical Business Bureau, LLC is available at: Link to Opinion. A debt collector reported to a credit reporting agency that a debtor owed nine debts of…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently affirmed entry of summary judgment in favor of the Federal Trade Commission and against 13 corporations and their two co-owners for violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act and the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act for allegedly placing unlawful and threatening collection calls to consumers seeking to collect payday loan debt. In so doing, the Second Circuit concluded that the trial court did not err in holding the offending corporations’ owners jointly and severally liable for the disgorgement assessed against all defendants, which was affirmed as an appropriate amount…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently affirmed the dismissal of a consumer’s complaint alleging that a collection letter violated the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. 1692, et seq., by failing to meaningfully convey the name of his creditor, as required. In so ruling, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that dismissal was appropriate because the consumer did not claim that the collector misidentified his creditor, and the ‘least sophisticated consumer’ who had been a patient at a hospital would surely understand the hospital to be the creditor when its name was listed next to the…
On Dec. 28, 2018, New York Senate Bill 3491 was signed into law and will become effective March 29, 2019. The legislation, in its final form, simply prohibits “principal creditors” and debt collection agencies from: (a) making any representation that a person is required to pay the debt of a family member in a way that contravenes the FDCPA; and (b) making any misrepresentation about the family member’s obligation to pay such debts. A “principal creditor” is defined under current law as “any person, firm, corporation or organization to whom a consumer claim is owed, due or asserted to be…
In an unpublished ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that when a debt collector did not seek to collect fees and interest after default, its letter to a borrower that did not state whether fees and interest continued to accrue after default did not engage in deceptive or misleading conduct in violation of the FDCPA. A copy of the opinion in Derosa v. CAC Financial Corp. is available at: Link to Opinion. After a borrower defaulted on her credit card account, the original creditor assigned the account to a debt collector. The debt collector sent a letter…