You can add Judge Frederic Bock to the list of judges within the Eastern District of New York (E.D.N.Y.) who are getting tired of the endless, hyper-technical "lawyer's cases" that come across their dockets alleging Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) violations. Last week in an order that...
Hiring and training a new employee is like building the foundation for a house. If it’s done correctly, the house will proudly stand the test of time. If it’s done incorrectly, it won’t stand a chance and will cause nothing but headaches for the owner. If that seems like the stakes are high for...
A District Court judge in Illinois has dismissed a whistleblower lawsuit filed against a healthcare provider, medical debt collection agency, and a medical billing company, alleging they engaged in a “ghost payroll” scheme that resulted in a larger Medicare payment from the federal government than...
The personal data of over a quarter of a million people has been exposed following a malicious hack perpetrated against a Texas billing and collection company. Houston-based company Benefit Recovery Specialists, Inc. (BRSI) discovered a data breach had occurred after detecting the installation of...
ACA International supports defendants in case focused on liability under the FDCPA when a factual error leads to collection on an account. A federal appeals court reviewed a case involving the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act bona-fide-error defense on Monday, June 22. ACA International filed an...
The further away that collectors get from the office, the more closely that they need to be monitored, although for the most part, what they are being monitored for is largely the same as when they were in the office, according to a panel of executives who spoke on the topic recently during a...
A District Court judge in Oregon has awarded the defendants in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case more than $65,000 in fees and costs — about 40% of what was being sought — ruling that the plaintiff’s claims in her lawsuit were “clearly untenable” from the outset of the case. A copy of the...
The Northern District of California has confirmed what the law makes clear: a debt collector may send the initial communication by email (except in New York). In Greene v. TrueAccord, Case No. 19-cv-06651 (N.D. Cal. May 19, 2020), the Plaintiff claimed the initial email she received and opened...
Hiring employees in the credit and collection industry today has become a delicate balance of making sure the candidate demonstrates that he or she is hungry for the position while also not taking too long to extend a job offer, or risk the candidate taking a job somewhere else. The days of...
Another judge in the Eastern District of New York criticized plaintiffs' counsel for what the court calls a "lawyer's case"—so technical that only a lawyer, not a least sophisticated consumer, would think of it. Judge Sandra Feuerstein quoted previous decisions by Judge Brian Cogan and Judge Leo...
In the realm of TCPA litigation, consent and revocation are bedrock issues that TCPA practitioners encounter on a daily basis. Amidst the often times complicated and nuanced legal issues surrounding the TCPA, a court in the Southern District of Georgia provided us with a nice refresher on the...
Training collectors, especially those who have been working at an agency for a period of time, is a great idea. But the idea of having to take them off the collection floor and take time away from being on the phone to train them, especially as the industry is heading into its busiest time of the...