A District Court judge in Georgia has denied a defendant’s motion to dismiss a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, ruling that the plaintiff did not have to submit a dispute in writing in order to allege the defendant violated Section 1692e(8) of the statute.
The background: The plaintiff alleged that the defendant failed to mark her account as “disputed” when furnishing information to a credit reporting agency.
- The plaintiff spoke with a representative of the defendant over the phone in October 2024 and disputed liability for the debt. saying “that she did not believe she was liable for the debt they were attempting to collect.”
- Despite allegedly acknowledging the dispute during the call, the debt collector did not report the account as disputed when the plaintiff later checked her credit report.
- The plaintiff argued that this omission violated multiple provisions of the FDCPA, including Section 1692e(8), which prohibits debt collectors from communicating false information about a debt, including failing to disclose that a debt is disputed.
The ruling: The defendant sought dismissal, arguing that because the plaintiff had not submitted her dispute in writing, her oral dispute could not support an FDCPA claim. But Judge Tilman E. Self, III of the District Court for the Middle District of Georgia rejected that argument, clarifying that Sections 1692e and 1692g(b) are distinct legal provisions with different requirements.
- Quoting precedent, Judge Self noted that Section “1692e(8) does not impose a writing requirement on consumers who wish to dispute a debt” and emphasized that the section applies whenever a debt collector “knows or should know” that a debt is disputed, regardless of whether the notice is oral or written.
- His ruling further explained that Congress’s decision to include an explicit in-writing requirement in certain sections of the FDCPA, but not in Section 1692e, was deliberate and not inadvertent.
- Based on this reasoning, the judge denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss, allowing the plaintiff’s claims under Sections 1692e(5), 1692e(8), and 1692e(10) to proceed.
