EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is part of a series that is sponsored by WebRecon. WebRecon identifies serial plaintiffs lurking in your database BEFORE you contact them and expose yourself to a likely lawsuit. Protect your company from as many as one in three new consumer lawsuits by scrubbing your consumers through WebRecon first. Want to learn more? Call (855) WEB-RECON or email admin@webrecon.net today! Thanks to WebRecon for sponsoring this series.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed in federal court in New York accusing a collector of violating Regulation F and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because the itemization of the debt in the Model Validation Notice did not match an itemization of the debt on the reverse side of the notice.
A copy of the complaint, filed in the District Court for the Southern District of New York, can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff received a Model Validation Notice from the defendant attempting to recover an unpaid medical debt. The itemization table on the front side of the notice stated:
As of August 8, 2020, you owed: $789.26
Between August 8, 2020 and today:
You were charged this amount in interest: + $399.16
You were charged this amount in fees: + $0.00
You were charged this amount toward the debt: – $0.00
Total amount of the debt now: $1,188.42
On the reverse side of the notice were a number of disclosures and another breakdown of the debt, which stated:
Total amount of debt due as of charge-off: $1188.42
Total amount of interest accrued since charge-off: $0.00
Total amount of non-interest charges or fees accrued since charge-off: $0.00
Total amount of payments made on debt since charge-off: $0.00
The plaintiff filed suit, alleging the notice violated Sections 1692e, 1692f, and 1692g of the FDCPA and Section 1006.42 of Regulation F because one side listed the amount of interest charged as $399.16 and one side lies the amount of interest accrued since charge-off as $0.00. One of the tables is mis-stating the amount, according to the complaint, which also alleges that the defendant failed to mention that the amount of interest may change.
The suit seeks to include anyone living in New York who received a letter from the defendant seeking to collect on a debt owed to a specific creditor that provided two different breakdowns of the total amount owed, where one stated an interest charge and one that states that no interest has accrued since the debt was charged off.
