In a case that was defended by Jonathan Robbin and the team at J. Robbin law, a state court judge in New York has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed a plaintiff’s Fair Debt Collection Practices Act complaint that accused a collector of violating the statute for sending a letter that identified the current creditor on the account — which purchased the debt from the original creditor — which was allegedly deceptive and misleading and not supplying the information requested when the plaintiff sought validation of the debt.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Fisher v. LVNV Funding and Financial Recovery Services can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff defaulted on a credit card debt that was purchased by LVNV Funding and placed with Financial Recovery Services for collection. FRS sent the plaintiff a collection letter that included options to settle the account for less than the full balance that was owing. The letter identified the original creditor, included the last four digits of the account number, and identified LVNV as the current creditor to whom the debt was owed.
The plaintiff filed suit, alleging the letter violated Sections 1692e, 1692e(2)(A), 1692e(10), 1692e(8), 1692e(12), and 1692e(1) because the plaintiff never owed the amount to LVNV and because LVNV was furnishing information about the debt to the credit reporting agencies.
After receiving the letter, the plaintiff sought to obtain validation of the debt, specifically asking for the chain of title and the purported ownership of the debt, but the information that the defendants sent back did not address these questions. The defendants sent letters back to the plaintiff and his attorneys that included the name of the original creditor, the name of the current creditor, the date of the last payment, the current balance that was owed, and the last four digits of the plaintiff’s account number.
There is nothing in the FDCPA that requires collectors to educate individuals with proof of how they came to acquire the debt from the original creditor, noted Judge Rupert V. Barry of the Supreme Court of the State New York for Kings County. With the information it supplied, the defendants have met their burden under the FDCPA and there is “no triable issue of material fact” that the defendants made a false, misleading, or deceptive statement.
