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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.
A debt buyer is facing a class-action lawsuit in New Jersey federal court alleging it violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by including the names of intermediary assignees in the chains of title when filing collection lawsuits against the plaintiffs, when, according to the complaint, the debts were sold directly to the defendant by the original creditors.
The background: Each of the three named plaintiffs had collection lawsuits filed against them by the defendant. In each of the complaints, the defendant represented that the chain of title included three separate entities between the original creditor and the defendant. But, for two of the plaintiffs, certifications that were filed by authorized representatives of the defendant indicated that the debts were sold to the defendant directly by the original creditors.
- The alleged misrepresentations created “the false impression of additional validation or documentation of the debts, or obscuring the actual transactions through which [the defendant] acquired the accounts,” according to the complaint.
- The plaintiffs suffered anxiety, stress, and emotional distress as a result of being sued based on false and misleading information, and consumers potentially made payments to the defendant based on those representations.
- Each of the three plaintiffs hired attorneys to represent them in the collection lawsuits, and failed to raise the issues with the chain of title as defenses, according to the complaint.
The claims: The complaint accuses the defendant of violating sections 1692e, 1692e(2)(A), 1692e(10), and 1692f of the FDCPA
- The complaint seeks to include a class of plaintiffs who were sued in New Jersey state court in which the complaint stated the chain of title included entities “that are, in fact, not in the chain of title/assignment,” according to the complaint.
