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.
Third-party disclosures are at or near the top of the worry list for just about every collection operation. Just sending a letter or email or text message to someone other than the intended recipient is not enough to trigger a third-party disclosure violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The intended recipient needs to find out that a communication was made to someone else in order for their to be a violation. A collection operation is facing a lawsuit in Virginia over claims that it violated the FDCPA because it sent a Model Validation Notice to someone other than the plaintiff and the plaintiff found out.
The background: Back in November 2024, the defendant sent a Model Validation Notice to the plaintiff, attempting to collect on a debt of $16,060.50. The notice was sent to an address in Ruther Glen, Virginia. The problem? The plaintiff wasn’t living in Ruther Glen, Virginia, nor had he ever lived at that address or provided the address to the original creditor, according to the complaint.
- Do you know who did live at that address in Ruther Glen, Virginia? The plaintiff’s brother.
- The brother had no connection to the debt in question and, according to the complaint, the plaintiff “has never lived in the same residence as his brother.” [EDITOR’S NOTE: Am I the only one who finds that a little weird?]
The claims: The lawsuit accuses the defendant of violating Sections 1692c, 1692e, 1692e(10), and 1692f of the FDCPA by sending a collection letter to an outside third party, and for making false or misleading representations (the plaintiff also disputed that all or part of the debt was owed).
- The plaintiff, who claims to have been “damaged” as a result of the defendant’s actions, is seeking statutory and actual damages, along with attorneys’ fees and expenses.
