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.
A collection operation is facing a lawsuit in California state court accusing it of violating the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act over a series of collection calls placed to a consumer’s cell phone, including calls allegedly made before 8:00 a.m. and calls placed after the plaintiff says she revoked consent to be contacted. Notably, the suit was filed in Los Angeles County state court rather than federal court, relying on the Rosenthal Act’s incorporation of the FDCPA rather than bringing a standalone federal claim.
The background: The plaintiff alleges the defendant contacted her repeatedly in an attempt to collect a debt she says she does not owe, including within the year preceding the filing of the complaint.
- The calls were allegedly placed to the plaintiff’s cell phone using an automatic telephone dialing system and prerecorded messages, according to the complaint.
- Some of the calls were allegedly placed before 8:00 a.m., during hours the complaint characterizes as unauthorized, and the caller allegedly failed to identify itself.
- The plaintiff claims she revoked any and all consent to be contacted via an automatic dialing system before the calls at issue were placed.
- The plaintiff says she has no knowledge of any debt related to the calls, informed the defendant of that fact, and told the defendant to stop calling, according to the complaint.
- In October 2024, the plaintiff sent a written demand that the defendant produce evidence validating the debt. To date, the defendant has not provided any documentation of the alleged debt, according to the complaint.
The claims: The complaint accuses the defendant of violating the Rosenthal Act through Section 1788.17, which incorporates the FDCPA, citing Sections 1692d and 1692d(5) for causing the plaintiff’s phone to ring repeatedly or continuously with the intent to harass, Section 1692c(a)(1) for communicating at times known to be inconvenient, and provisions prohibiting misrepresenting the status of the debt and using unfair or unconscionable collection means.
- The complaint also cites Sections 1788.11(d) and 1788.11(e) of the Rosenthal Act directly, for causing a telephone to ring repeatedly to annoy the plaintiff and for communicating with unreasonable frequency under the circumstances.
- The complaint separately accuses the defendant of violating Section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) of the TCPA by using an automatic telephone dialing system and prerecorded voice messages to call a cell phone number without consent and not for emergency purposes.
