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.
There are two sides to every story, the saying goes. But, in a lot of cases, those two sides don’t always tell the whole story. Or the story lies somewhere in between both stories. A collection law firm and process serving company are being sued for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because they filed an affidavit claiming to have served a summons and complaint for a collection lawsuit on a “co-resident” of the plaintiff’s house, except for the fact that the plaintiff claims there are no co-residents living there.
The Background: The collection law firm was retained by a credit card lender to collect on a debt. The collection law firm filed a lawsuit against the plaintiff in Illinois state court and hired a process serving company to serve the summons and complaint. The process serving company submitted an affidavit of service, attesting that the employee served the documents on a co-resident at the plaintiff’s residence. The co-resident refused to give his name and appeared to be a brown-haired white male between 35 and 45 years old.
- The defendant was able to obtain a default judgment because the plaintiff never responded or answered the collection lawsuit.
- The defendant then mailed a copy of the ruling to the plaintiff, who claimed that this was the first time she was being made aware of the proceedings.
- The plaintiff claims that she lives at the residence with her daughter, who was 15 years old at the time the service of the summons purportedly took place. Nobody else lives at the residence, according to the plaintiff.
- The plaintiff was able to successfully vacate the judgment and subsequently filed this lawsuit.
The Claims: The suit accuses the defendants of violating the FDCPA as well as the Illinois Collection Agency Act.
- The defendant are accused of violating Sections 1692e, 1692e(2)(A), 1692e(5), and 1692e(10) of the FDCPA by filing a false affidavit in the underlying collection lawsuit.
