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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.
We haven’t seen a lot of these types of lawsuits, even though people expected to see a lot of them filed after Regulation F went into effect. A plaintiff is accusing a collection operation of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by furnishing information about a debt to the credit reporting agencies before notifying the plaintiff about the debt, allegedly violating the debt parking provisions of Regulation F.
A copy of the complaint, filed in the District Court for the District of Minnesota, can be accessed using case number 23-cv-00456 or by clicking here.
Way back in 2017, the plaintiff incurred a debt to a cable provider for equipment that was allegedly not returned. Then, last year, the plaintiff received an alert from Credit Karma that the debt was now appearing on his credit report. The plaintiff claims to have never received anything in writing about the debt.
The plaintiff allegedly contacted the defendant and made arrangements to pay the debt for less than the full balance, because he was in the process of purchasing a house. According to the complaint, the plaintiff “repeatedly” called the defendant to make the payment but the defendant never answered the phone. The plaintiff then thought the debt was a scam and opted to dispute the debt with the credit reporting agencies, according to the complaint.
The plaintiff is also accusing the defendant of violating the FCRA by failing to conduct a reasonable investigation after the debt was disputed, it appears only because the item still continued to appear on the plaintiff’s credit report after the debt was disputed.
The complaint accuses the defendant of violating Sections 1692d, 1692e, 1692e(2), 1692e(5), 1692e(7), 1692e(8), 1692e(9), and 1692e(10) of the FDCPA and Section 1681s-2(b) of the FCRA.
