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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.
Well, we went through a series of lawsuits alleging that Model Validation Notices violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because they lacked a date. Now, it appears that the next area of focus for plaintiff’s attorneys is the itemization date. Another class-action lawsuit has been filed accusing a collector of violating the FDCPA because the itemization date that were used in the Model Validation Notice wasn’t one of the five allowed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau when it created Regulation F.
A copy of the lawsuit, which was filed in Florida state court and then subsequently removed to the District Court for the Southern District of Florida, can be accessed using case number 23-cv-61771 or by clicking here.
The suit looks almost exactly identical and make the exact same claims as another “wrong itemization date” class-action filed on the same day in the same jurisdiction (see link below). In both cases, the plaintiffs each received a Model Validation Notice — with a date, in case you were wondering — and each notice referenced an itemization date. In both suits, the itemization dates that were used, though, were not one of the five allowed by the CFPB — the last statement date, charge-off date, last payment date, transaction date, or the date of judgment. Neither complaint details how the plaintiff knows that the date that was used is not one of those dates, so it looks like it will be up to the defendants to prove that the dates that were used were one of the five allowed by the CFPB.
These are not the first “not the right itemization date” lawsuits to be filed (see here, here, and here) but seeing two of them, filed in the same district on the same day is a little unusual.
Both suits accuse the defendants of violating Sections 1692e, 1692e(2)(A), 1692f, and 1692g of the FDCPA. Both suits seek to include anyone in Florida that received a Model Validation Notice from the plaintiff that did not use one of the five required itemization dates.
