A lot happened in 2024 and it can be difficult to remember it all. Take this walk down memory lane by revisiting the most popular posts from each month of the year …
January
January 2: ‘Inconvenient’ Time/Channel Email Complaint Volume Increasing. I have written about this type of case before, but given the volume of new complaints that are being filed, I think it bears mentioning again because it appears that plaintiff’s attorneys and consumers are not going to stop filing these kinds of suits anytime soon.
February
February 28: DFPI Fines Fintech Company $2.5M For Faulty Complaint Handling. The California Department of Financial Protection & Innovation has fined a fintech company $2.5 million for not responding to consumer complaints in a timely manner that constitutes a violation of California’s Consumer Financial Protection Law, the DFPI said.
March
March 22: Appeals Court Overturns Ruling in FDCPA Case, Says Plaintiff Lacked Standing. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has vacated a lower court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of a plaintiff in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case and remanded the case back to the District Court so it can be dismissed because the plaintiff lacked standing to sue in the first place.
April
April 5: Separate Plaintiffs File FDCPA Suits After Sending Exact Refusal Message to Same Defendant. I’m going to say right from the start that this article probably isn’t worth reading. It’s something I noticed and it’s likely not a coincidence, but I’m also not sure it’s a trend or cautionary tale that you need to be worried about. I found it to be odd and strange and since I’m in charge of what gets posted in these parts, I decided to make a mention of it. Beyond that, there probably isn’t much there. They say that lightning never strikes the same place twice. And, as we all no doubt know, there are millions (if not more) ways that an individual can dispute a debt. But what are the odds of two different plaintiffs sending the exact same dispute message to the same defendant one day apart from each other? And when you see what the dispute message is, you’ll no doubt note that the odds of two people doing this randomly are very very small.
May
May 16: Supreme Court Says CFPB Funding Structure is Constitutional. The Supreme Court ruled today that the funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutional and does not need to change. Had the ruling gone the other way, there was the possibility that the CFPB could have been de-funded. The justices voted 7-2 in favor of upholding the funding structure, which allows the CFPB to draw money directly from the Federal Reserve Board and not through the Congressional appropriations process.
June
June 28: Supreme Court Overturns Chevron Doctrine; Limits Authority of Federal Regulators Like CFPB, FTC. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court today overturned the Chevron doctrine, a precedent that has allowed federal agencies significant authority to interpret ambiguous laws. This ruling, decided along ideological lines, fundamentally changes how regulations will be implemented and challenged moving forward.
July
July 23: Industry Mourns Passing of Eric Foulk. The accounts receivable management industry lost a friend and a brother last week with the passing of Eric Foulk. Foulk, who most recently worked at TransUnion, had spent most of his career in the ARM industry, after he left the military. More details about Eric’s passing are available here. AccountsRecovery.net is proud to share these tributes to Eric, to give those who knew him and those who didn’t a chance to grieve and remember him.
August
August 7: Judge Sanctions Plaintiff’s Attorneys for ‘Campaign of Deception’ Related to Dispute Letter Forgeries. When writing summaries of legal rulings, I usually try to find a quote from the judge, to either summarize the situation or provide color or because what the judge wrote was funny or clever. When it comes to the ruling you’re going to read about in this case, though, I want to just copy and paste all 16 pages of it. A District Court judge in Pennsylvania has ordered the attorneys representing a pair of plaintiffs in Fair Debt Collection Practices Act cases to pay all of the attorney’s fees, expenses and costs for the defendant, calling out the attorneys for engaging in a “campaign of deception designed to line their own pockets” by handwriting “stream-of-conscience” dispute letters on behalf of clients.
September
September 20: Collector Facing FDCPA Class Action For Attempting to Collect on Invalid Debt. Is it a red flag when a complaint alleges that a collector made mistakes in a letter that it sent to a consumer, but then the consumer doesn’t attach the letter as an exhibit in the complaint? Is it more of a red flag when that complaint is a class-action? A collector is being sued for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because it attempted to collect a debt that the plaintiff alleges he did not incur.
October
October 4: Judge Dismisses Another ‘Inconvenient’ FDCPA Case. Where the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit became known as the standing court, District Courts in Oklahoma are earning a reputation for being the court where inconvenient time and place caselaw is being written. This time, a District Court judge in Oklahoma has granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss after it sent a letter in response to a letter from the plaintiff stating that email was the only convenient channel of communication going forward.
November
November 29: Musk Calls for Elimination of CFPB. And you thought the Thanksgiving holiday weekend was going to be a slow news day … Billionaire Elon Musk, who has been tasked by President-elect Trump with identifying ways to reduce government spending, suggested in a post on his social media platform on Wednesday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau be eliminated because it is a “duplicative regulatory” agency.
December
December 20: Waters Reintroduces Debt Collection Reform Bill: Rep. Maxine Waters [D-Calif.], ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, this week reintroduced H.R. 10509, the Comprehensive Debt Collection Improvement Act. This legislation, first introduced in 2021, seeks to modernize federal debt collection laws while offering stronger protections for consumers facing various types of debt.
A lot happened in 2024 and it can be difficult to remember it all. Take this walk down memory lane by revisiting the most popular posts from each month of the year …
January
January 2: ‘Inconvenient’ Time/Channel Email Complaint Volume Increasing. I have written about this type of case before, but given the volume of new complaints that are being filed, I think it bears mentioning again because it appears that plaintiff’s attorneys and consumers are not going to stop filing these kinds of suits anytime soon.
February
February 28: DFPI Fines Fintech Company $2.5M For Faulty Complaint Handling. The California Department of Financial Protection & Innovation has fined a fintech company $2.5 million for not responding to consumer complaints in a timely manner that constitutes a violation of California’s Consumer Financial Protection Law, the DFPI said.
March
March 22: Appeals Court Overturns Ruling in FDCPA Case, Says Plaintiff Lacked Standing. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has vacated a lower court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of a plaintiff in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case and remanded the case back to the District Court so it can be dismissed because the plaintiff lacked standing to sue in the first place.
April
April 5: Separate Plaintiffs File FDCPA Suits After Sending Exact Refusal Message to Same Defendant. I’m going to say right from the start that this article probably isn’t worth reading. It’s something I noticed and it’s likely not a coincidence, but I’m also not sure it’s a trend or cautionary tale that you need to be worried about. I found it to be odd and strange and since I’m in charge of what gets posted in these parts, I decided to make a mention of it. Beyond that, there probably isn’t much there. They say that lightning never strikes the same place twice. And, as we all no doubt know, there are millions (if not more) ways that an individual can dispute a debt. But what are the odds of two different plaintiffs sending the exact same dispute message to the same defendant one day apart from each other? And when you see what the dispute message is, you’ll no doubt note that the odds of two people doing this randomly are very very small.
May
May 16: Supreme Court Says CFPB Funding Structure is Constitutional. The Supreme Court ruled today that the funding structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutional and does not need to change. Had the ruling gone the other way, there was the possibility that the CFPB could have been de-funded. The justices voted 7-2 in favor of upholding the funding structure, which allows the CFPB to draw money directly from the Federal Reserve Board and not through the Congressional appropriations process.
June
June 28: Supreme Court Overturns Chevron Doctrine; Limits Authority of Federal Regulators Like CFPB, FTC. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court today overturned the Chevron doctrine, a precedent that has allowed federal agencies significant authority to interpret ambiguous laws. This ruling, decided along ideological lines, fundamentally changes how regulations will be implemented and challenged moving forward.
July
July 23: Industry Mourns Passing of Eric Foulk. The accounts receivable management industry lost a friend and a brother last week with the passing of Eric Foulk. Foulk, who most recently worked at TransUnion, had spent most of his career in the ARM industry, after he left the military. More details about Eric’s passing are available here. AccountsRecovery.net is proud to share these tributes to Eric, to give those who knew him and those who didn’t a chance to grieve and remember him.
August
August 7: Judge Sanctions Plaintiff’s Attorneys for ‘Campaign of Deception’ Related to Dispute Letter Forgeries. When writing summaries of legal rulings, I usually try to find a quote from the judge, to either summarize the situation or provide color or because what the judge wrote was funny or clever. When it comes to the ruling you’re going to read about in this case, though, I want to just copy and paste all 16 pages of it. A District Court judge in Pennsylvania has ordered the attorneys representing a pair of plaintiffs in Fair Debt Collection Practices Act cases to pay all of the attorney’s fees, expenses and costs for the defendant, calling out the attorneys for engaging in a “campaign of deception designed to line their own pockets” by handwriting “stream-of-conscience” dispute letters on behalf of clients.
September
September 20: Collector Facing FDCPA Class Action For Attempting to Collect on Invalid Debt. Is it a red flag when a complaint alleges that a collector made mistakes in a letter that it sent to a consumer, but then the consumer doesn’t attach the letter as an exhibit in the complaint? Is it more of a red flag when that complaint is a class-action? A collector is being sued for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because it attempted to collect a debt that the plaintiff alleges he did not incur.
October
October 4: Judge Dismisses Another ‘Inconvenient’ FDCPA Case. Where the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit became known as the standing court, District Courts in Oklahoma are earning a reputation for being the court where inconvenient time and place caselaw is being written. This time, a District Court judge in Oklahoma has granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss after it sent a letter in response to a letter from the plaintiff stating that email was the only convenient channel of communication going forward.
November
November 29: Musk Calls for Elimination of CFPB. And you thought the Thanksgiving holiday weekend was going to be a slow news day … Billionaire Elon Musk, who has been tasked by President-elect Trump with identifying ways to reduce government spending, suggested in a post on his social media platform on Wednesday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau be eliminated because it is a “duplicative regulatory” agency.
December
December 20: Waters Reintroduces Debt Collection Reform Bill: Rep. Maxine Waters [D-Calif.], ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, this week reintroduced H.R. 10509, the Comprehensive Debt Collection Improvement Act. This legislation, first introduced in 2021, seeks to modernize federal debt collection laws while offering stronger protections for consumers facing various types of debt.
