According to the district court for the District of Massachusetts, debt collectors may be found in violation of § 1692g(a)(3) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) when sending debt collection letters requiring the consumer to dispute the debt in writing.
As background, in Sherwyn Rocke v. Monarch Recovery Management, Inc. (Monarch), the
As discussed here, on September 8, 2022, an en banc panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s decision that a debt collector’s outsourcing of its letter process to a third-party mail vendor violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act’s prohibition on third-party disclosure. The Eleventh Circuit remanded the case
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held that § 523(a)(2)(A) of the Bankruptcy Code precludes a debtor from discharging a debt obtained by fraud, regardless of the debtor’s own culpability. In Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, issued February 22, the Court concluded that “§ 523(a)(2)(A) turns on how the money was obtained, not who committed
On January 19, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Virginia entered an order sanctioning a collections law firm for violating the bankruptcy discharge injunction. The court in Skaggs v. Gooch (In re Skaggs) awarded the debtor $25,000 in attorneys’ fees based on a letter he received concerning a discharged
On January 9, the Seventh Circuit overturned its own 39-year-old precedent to find that: (1) the definition of “transfer” for purposes of section 547 of the Bankruptcy Code depends on federal, not state, law; and (2) the date of “transfer” is the time at which the money passes to the creditor’s control.
At a high
In a recent decision, a Michigan district court found that because there was a genuine issue of fact as to whether the defendant debt collector notified the consumer reporting agency (CRA) to remove a disputed debt notification from the plaintiff’s tradeline, the case could proceed to trial.
In Snyder v. LVNV Funding LLC, et al., the plaintiff filed a putative class action lawsuit against LVNV Funding LLC (LVNV) and Sequium Asset Solutions, LLC (SAS), alleging a letter from SAS offering a settlement of her debt violated sections 1692e(2)(A) and 1692g(a)(1) of the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The court held
According to a recent year-in-review report by WebRecon, Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) filings continued their slow-but-steady increased pace throughout 2022. On the other hand, filings under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) were both significantly down from previous years. Likewise, complaints filed with the CFPB were
Federal courts across the country continue to divest themselves of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) cases following the Supreme Court’s salient Article III standing decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez. The Southern District of Illinois is no exception, with a court in that district recently dismissing an FDCPA action for lack of standing
On December 28, 2022, the New York Department of Financial Services released its debt collection rule amendments to 23 NYCRR 1, the regulation titled “Debt Collection by Third-Party Debt Collectors and Debt Buyers.” The initial proposed amendments were opened to public comment in late 2021. The rule amendments will take effect 180 days after the