275 Paragraphs Later: FDCPA Suit Over One Phone Call Seeks $35k
- A four-minute phone call. A $1,758 rental car debt. And a complaint that somehow stretches to 275 numbered paragraphs, 11 counts, and a stack of exhibits, including a damages summary pegging the harm at no less than $35,000. Oh, and the call at the center of it all? The plaintiff placed it himself. A collection operation in Arizona is now facing 13 alleged FDCPA violations, plus Regulation F and state-law claims, all built on that single conversation and a validation notice the plaintiff says never arrived.
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Judge Rejects Attempt to Undo Arbitration Loss for Plaintiff in FCRA Case
- The plaintiff submitted 56 exhibits at her arbitration hearing. The arbitrator admitted every single one of them, and she still lost on all of her FCRA and state-law claims. So she asked a federal judge in Georgia to throw out the award, arguing the arbitrator ignored critical evidence and manifestly disregarded the law. The judge’s response is a reminder of just how little flexibility the Federal Arbitration Act offers, and why even a serious legal error by an arbitrator may not be enough to reopen a case.
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Judge Dismisses Veteran’s FDCPA Suit Against VA Debt Management Center
- A veteran watching $117 come out of his disability check every month for an $8,853 debt he insists he never owed sued the VA’s Debt Management Center, naming the federal building that houses it as the defendant and asking for $450,000 plus a two-year shutdown of the operation. It was his fourth lawsuit over the same benefits. The judge’s ruling explains why federal courts cannot hear the case at all, no matter how the claims are dressed up, and why the FDCPA offers no path against this particular defendant.
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Post-Chevron, Post-CFPB: State Enforcement Is the Story Now
- Two new analyses arrive at the same conclusion from very different directions: the center of gravity in consumer financial regulation has left Washington, and it is not coming back anytime soon. State AGs of both parties are hiring former CFPB staff, coordinating multistate actions, and just extracted $45 million from one fintech across 46 states. And the end of Chevron deference may make them the dominant players in the next era of regulatory litigation. If your compliance program was built around a single federal regulator, this one is required reading.
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Former CFPB Official Tapped to Lead New Jersey’s Consumer Protection Agency
- The pattern keeps repeating: as the CFPB pulls back, states are recruiting the Bureau’s alumni to run their own enforcement shops. New Jersey is the latest, tapping a former senior CFPB official and nationally recognized consumer law scholar to lead its Division of Consumer Affairs. He helped build the Bureau’s enforcement strategy in its formative years, and he says he plans to get to work on day one. Find out who is taking the reins and what his appointment signals about where the next enforcement actions may come from.
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The New York Times on the Surge in Collection Suits
- When The New York Times writes about debt collection, the industry should pay attention to how the story gets told. This one leans on new Pew data showing collection filings have surged past prepandemic levels in seven of eight states studied, quotes a law professor describing courts as “choking” on cases, and walks consumers through a wave of new state protections. But the industry’s perspective made it into print too, along with an AI experiment in the Los Angeles courts that could change how collection claims get reviewed.
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Workers Use AI Daily but Balk at Letting It Act Alone: Report
- Three quarters of employees now use AI every day. So why do 61% prefer it take no independent action at all? A new global study reveals a workforce that has embraced AI but refuses to trust it unsupervised, spending an average of two hours per week just double-checking its output. For ARM firms weighing agent-assist tools against fully autonomous workflows, the findings point to a surprising conclusion: workers are not rejecting autonomy. They are rejecting something more specific.
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WORTH NOTING: A look at 20 different KPIs that contact centers should be tracking … Nine different Costco products that should be in every kitchen … Waymo’s driverless cars crash less often than cars driven by humans … More women are drinking alcohol while pregnant … How much, or how little, you make may be keeping you from finding true love … People are losing up to 56 hours of sleep per year because of warmer temperatures at night … For the fourth straight year, the best state in America is the same … What happens to your brain when you stress about money.
Trailer Tuesday, part I
Trailer Tuesday, part II
The Daily Digest is sponsored by TCN. Today, contact centers need to do more with less. TCN’s cloud-based predictive dialing tools and services help clients to leverage the most sophisticated inbound, outbound, and blended calling technologies available. TCN’s award-winning platform offers multiple features to assist in compliance while improving performance with no hardware, no monthly minimums, or maintenance fees. Call 866-745-1900 or visit tcn.com today.
