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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.
There are two types of complaints that are filed against companies in the credit and collection industry: those that are short on details and those that aren’t. This is the latter. A pair of companies are facing claims they violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and state law in Michigan for their attempts to collect on the proceeds of a loan that the plaintiff claims never to have received, which caused the plaintiff to suffer from a number of medical issues and to verbally abuse the person taking care of him.
The background: The plaintiff saw an ad for an undescribed type of medical treatment and scheduled a consultation with a medical facility. When he arrived for the consultation, the plaintiff signed a medical intake form. The plaintiff ended the consultation early, after he was made to feel uncomfortable because the doctor ignored the plaintiff’s disabilities.
- Two years later, the plaintiff received a call from one of the defendants, saying he had received a loan from the facility, that the 24-month promotional period had expired on the loan, and that payments now needed to be made.
- The plaintiff claims never to have agreed to take out a loan.
- The representative gave the plaintiff a phone number for the facility so that the plaintiff could call and confirm he had taken out a loan, but when the plaintiff called the medical facility, nobody answered. The plaintiff searched online, found a different phone number for the facility, but when he called that number, he was connected to a psychiatric hospital in California.
- The plaintiff then visited the location where he went for the consultation, but the office was closed and the name of the facility had been scraped off the door.
- The defendant continued to contact the plaintiff to attempt to collect on the loan. At times, the representatives were rude to the plaintiff, threatening to garnish the plaintiff’s wages if payments were not made.
- The defendant also claimed it was sending emails to the plaintiff, but the plaintiff claimed not to have an email address.
- The defendant, which claimed it was a collection agency, also threatened it was going to “ruin” the plaintiff’s credit by reporting the debt to the credit bureaus if payments were not made.
- During one of the calls, a representative for the defendant indicated that the loan was given out by another company, and when the plaintiff called that company, he was told it had the plaintiff’s signature on an application and it had been sending the plaintiff emails attempting to collect.
- The plaintiff, and then the plaintiff’s attorney, each sent the defendants letters that disputed the debts and requested that communications with the plaintiff be stopped. The defendants have yet to respond to the letters, according to the complaint.
The claims: The defendants’ efforts to collect on the debt have caused the plaintiff to lose his appetite, sometimes going for two or three days at at time without eating or only eating one meal a day.
- Similarly, the plaintiff has only been able to sleep for one or two hours at a time, and has been left constipated for days at a time, requiring him to buy laxatives.
- The plaintiff has also been verbally abusive to his caretaker, who responded by being rough with the plaintiff in the shower, which led to a lack of quality in the caretaking services that were being provided, such as leaving the plaintiff alone for days after a letter was received, among other claims.
- The defendants are accused of violating Sections 1692e(2)(A), 1692e(2)(B), 1692e(5), 1692e(10), and 1692f(1) of the FDCPA by attempting to collect money that the plaintiff did not owe, threatening to garnish the plaintiff’s wages, misrepresenting that it was sending emails, and threatening to ruin the plaintiff’s credit, among other claims.
- The defendants are also accused of violating the Michigan Regulation of Collection Practices Act, the Michigan Occupational Code, and the Michigan Consumer Protection Act.
