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.
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.
A complaint has been filed in federal court in Florida accusing a defendant of violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by attempting to collect on a debt that had already been settled in a separate lawsuit against a different collection operation.
A copy of the complaint, filed in the District Court for the Middle District of Florida, can be accessed using case number 23-cv-00045 or by clicking here.
The plaintiff, who was 22 at the time and a college student, incurred a medical debt. The plaintiff received a letter from the healthcare provider, advising him of the amount owed and disclosing that if the balance was covered by insurance, to contact the healthcare provider, which he did. The provider sent another letter and this time the plaintiff and his mom called the provider to submit his health insurance information. The provider placed the account with a collection agency, which sent a letter to the plaintiff, allegedly seeking to collect more than twice the balance that was detailed in the letters sent by the provider. The plaintiffs filed suit against the collection agency and the suit was settled.
The plaintiff then received a letter from the defendant, seeking to collect on the same debt that was settled.
The complaint alleges the defendant violated Sections 1692d and 1692e of the FDCPA, along with provisions of the Florida Consumer Collections Practices Act.
The defendants knew, or should have known, that the debt had been waived and that it had no legal right to collect on the settled debt.
