Harley Davidson Financial Arm Hit with Lawsuit Over Alleged Debt Collection Calls

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Harley Davidson Financial Services, Inc. faces a proposed class action over its apparent practice of placing automated collection calls to consumers’ cell phones after they’ve requested that the calls cease.

The 11-page case out of Illinois federal court alleges the defendant’s calls have violated both the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. According to the lawsuit, the TCPA was intended to “protect individuals from the harassment, invasion of privacy, inconvenience, nuisance, and other harms associated with unsolicited, automated calls” like the ones alleged to have been made by Harley Davidson Financial Services.

The plaintiff claims to have purchased in August 2020 a 2018 Ultra Limited Harley Davidson motorcycle that she financed through the defendant. Though the plaintiff’s contract required her to make payments on the sixth of every month, the agreement included a 10-day grace period during which she could make payments with no ramifications, according to the suit. The plaintiff claims to have always made her payments before the expiration of the grace period, with the exception of her April 2021 payment, which was made on the eleventh day, the suit says.

According to the lawsuit, the defendant has placed collection calls to the plaintiff every single month starting on the ninth day of the month and continuing until payment is made. The plaintiff says she became “extremely frustrated” after receiving eight collection calls between March 9 and 10, 2021, and informed Harley Davidson on the 11^th that payment would be made the next day. Moreover, the plaintiff requested that the defendant stop calling her as the collection calls “were becoming excessive,” the suit relays. Although Harley Davison initially stopped placing the collection calls to the plaintiff’s cell phone, they began again on March 17, according to the complaint. 

The plaintiff alleges that in addition to the collection calls, she’s received from the defendant dozens of prerecorded messages that were each 32 seconds long and “all the same recording.”

In total, the defendant placed “no less than 150 harassing phone calls and 35 pre-recorded messages” to the plaintiff after she requested that the collection calls cease, the filing states. Because the defendant did not have the plaintiff’s consent to place calls using an automatic telephone dialing system and an artificial or prerecorded voice, the calls violated the TCPA, the complaint alleges.

The plaintiff claims she and others to whom Harley Davidson has placed the unlawful collection calls were “severely harmed” by the financer’s conduct.

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