Hawx Pest Control Hit with Class Action Over Alleged Collection Calls

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A Fayetteville, North Carolina resident claims in a proposed class action that Hawx Pest Control has placed more than 100 robocalls to her cell phone after she requested that the company stop calling her.

The 10-page suit alleges the “incessant” calls and text messages concerned a purported debt that the plaintiff says she never owed and for which Hawx was allegedly unable to provide substantiation.

The lawsuit claims Hawx has unlawfully failed to maintain adequate policies to ensure compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a federal law that prohibits the use of automated telephone dialing technology to place certain types of calls without a recipient’s consent to do so. According to the case, Hawx knew its collection calls violated the TCPA yet “continued to employ them to maximize efficiency and profits at the expense of Plaintiff and the Putative Class.”

The plaintiff claims to have initially signed up for Hawx’s pest control services in early 2020 before quickly discovering that they were “ineffective.” According to the case, the plaintiff “noticed more bugs after Defendant commenced its services than prior to the commencement of Defendant’s services,” and eventually informed Hawx that she no longer needed its services and declined the company’s offer to send another technician to her home. Hawx then confirmed the woman’s cancellation request and advised the plaintiff that she owed no money and would not be billed, according to the complaint.

In September 2020, however, Hawx allegedly sent another technician to the plaintiff’s home “for reasons unknown” to her. After receiving an email that stated a technician was on the way to her home, the plaintiff “immediately called” Hawx and was informed that “the system must not have been updated properly,” the lawsuit relays. When the technician arrived, the plaintiff sent him away without allowing him to take any pictures of her property, according to the complaint.

The plaintiff claims to have then sent Hawx a letter relaying that she had canceled her services and requested that the defendant no longer come to her home, email her, call her or “contact her in any way.” Nevertheless, the plaintiff began to receive collection calls in October 2020 concerning an allegedly unpaid balance on her Hawx account, the suit says.

Although the plaintiff disputed the alleged debt and asked for substantiation, the defendant “was unable to provide Plaintiff with an itemization or otherwise substantiate the balance that Defendant sought to collect from Plaintiff,” according to the filing. Despite the plaintiff’s dispute, Hawx allegedly continued to place “erroneous collection calls” to the consumer’s phone that contained the following 22-second prerecorded message:

The plaintiff claims to have also received text messages from the defendant in an attempt to collect on the purported debt.

Although the plaintiff sent another cease-and-desist letter in June 2021, the letter “fell on blind eyes,” and Hawx continued to place the prerecorded calls, according to the complaint.

Per the suit, the plaintiff has received more than 100 calls and messages from the defendant since her initial request that the company stop contacting her. According to the case, the calls violated the TCPA in that Hawx did not have the plaintiff’s prior express written consent to contact her using a prerecorded voice.

The plaintiff looks to represent anyone in the U.S. to whose cell phone Hawx placed or caused to be placed a call using an artificial or prerecorded voice without obtaining the consumer’s consent within the past four years and until the date of class certification.

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