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.
One of the keys to being able to sue someone in federal court is the need to show that you suffered some form of actual injury — something bad needed to have happened to you as a result of whatever you are accusing someone of doing. For plaintiffs suing collectors for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, that usually means money. Judges want to see that whatever harm was done to a plaintiff caused that individual some form of financial loss, whether it’s paying a debt or making a payment on a debt or something else. Over the years, we’ve seen some interesting attempts from plaintiffs trying to show they suffered a concrete injury — the plaintiff who needed to purchase sleeping pills, for example, because the anxiety caused by a debt collector’s action left him unable to sleep. This case offers a new attempt at demonstrating the financial losses that can be incurred as a result of a collector’s actions.
In this case, the actions of the defendant — which occurred during a “heavily credit-dependent month” for the plaintiff — caused the plaintiff to pay for a “comprehensive review” of his credit reports to ensure no erroneous debts were being reported about him because he was about to sign up for a new American Express card to qualify for a rebate on a new car lease he wanted to sign up for. That led to the plaintiff filing a class-action lawsuit against the defendant.
The background: The plaintiff received a text message from the defendant on August 13 of this year, attempting to collect on an unpaid medical debt. The plaintiff called the defendant after receiving the message and was informed that the debt in question belonged to the plaintiff’s father and therefore the defendant could not discuss details about the debt with the plaintiff.
- Later that month, a representative of the defendant stated to the plaintiff that the debt did indeed belong to the plaintiff, providing the last four digits of the plaintiff’s Social Security number, date of birth, and full name as verification.
- The debt was a medical debt in the amount of $600.
- But the plaintiff is a recipient of Medicaid and should not be responsible for medical expenses incurred unless he was not eligible for Medicaid at the time the services were rendered. The plaintiff claims to have been eligible for and covered by Medicaid at the time the services were rendered.
- The complaint goes on to detail a lengthy list of reasons why the plaintiff’s character was being impugned and why the defendant’s actions were embarrassing and demeaning to his character.
The claims: The complaint accuses the defendant of violating Sections 1692e(2)(A), 1692e(10), and 1692f(1) of the FDCPA by attempting to collect on a debt that should have been covered by Medicaid. He seeks to include anyone else in New York who received a collection communication from the defendant attempting to collect on a debt where the individual had valid Medicaid coverage.
