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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.
You can’t have it both ways, can you? The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act applies to consumer debts — those incurred for personal, family, or household purposes. Debts that are incurred for commercial purposes, like those related to business expenses, are not covered by the FDCPA. A plaintiff has filed a class-action lawsuit in Georgia federal court, accusing a credit card company and two collection law firms of violating the FDCPA, with a head tilt to alleging they also violated Regulation F, but while also claiming the debts were not incurred for personal purposes.
The background: The timeline in the complaint isn’t exactly linear so it’s not completely clear what happened and when, but this is how it looks to me. Back in 2024, the plaintiff was sued by the defendant for an unpaid credit card debt. The debts were business debts for commercial purposes allegedly incurred by the plaintiff’s former employer, according to the complaint.
- This February, one of the collection law firms sent a letter to the plaintiff that failed to comply with the FDCPA because it omitted disclosures, such as failing to identify itself as a debt collector and for using something other than the Model Validation Notice (I think that’s what the plaintiff means when alleging “using misleading letter formats contrary to guidance issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau”).
- Then, in July the other collection law firm sent the plaintiff a letter that sought to collect an amount not authorized by any agreement or permitted by law.
- The complaint also alleges that between 2020 and 2022 the defendants “engaged in repeated and systematic collection communications directed at plaintiff, including letters, phone calls, and multiple overlapping lawsuits.”
- The defendants also allegedly failed to identify themselves as debt collectors in phone calls to the plaintiff, failed to include the mini-Miranda in letters and legal pleadings, failed to provide a validation notice, created the false impression that attorneys had meaningfully reviewed the plaintiff’s file prior to initiating litigation (when was the last time you saw that old chestnut?), and otherwise attempted to confuse, harass, and intimidate the plaintiff. Really a greatest hits set of allegations.
The claims: The suit seeks to include anyone else from across the country who were subject to collection communications, lawsuits, or other collection activity by the defendants who had an alleged consumer debt where the defendants failed to provide required disclosures, misrepresented the character, amount, or legal status of the debt, or “otherwise engages in conduct prohibited by the FDCPA.”
- The suit accuses the defendants of violating Sections 1692e(2)(A), 1692e(3), 1692e(10), 1692e(11), 1692g(a), 1692f(1), and 1692d of the FDCPA as well as violating Georgia state law.
- Along with financial damages, the plaintiff is also seeking to be held not liable for the debts.
