PYOD Hit with Class Action Over Alleged Disclosure of Consumer Credit Scores in Court Filings

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A proposed class action alleges PYOD LLC has filed highly confidential, statutorily protected consumer reports as part of state court lawsuits nationwide despite having no permissible purpose with which to obtain or use the reports or the credit scores therein. 

The 19-page lawsuit alleges PYOD has violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by obtaining, using or disclosing consumers’ credit scores via a publicly accessible website in connection with state court debt collection proceedings. The case also claims PYOD has run afoul of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) by publishing unredacted consumer credit scores in connection with its debt collection activity. 

According to the complaint, proposed class members have suffered an invasion of a legally protected interest, i.e. the privacy of their financial information, as a result of PYOD’s conduct. One of the principal tenets of the FCRA is that entities such as PYOD must both have and certify a permissible purpose for obtaining and then using a consumer report before doing so, the suit relays.

The lawsuit says the plaintiff, a Tamarac, Florida resident, was sued by PYOD in state court in November 2020 after being unable to repay the balance on a credit account. In its filing, PYOD attached a copy of documents purporting to show its ownership over the plaintiff’s debt, the suit claims. According to the complaint, the attached documents contained the plaintiff’s unredacted credit score information. The lawsuit alleges it was unnecessary and unlawful for PYOD to publish this information in its state court filings. 

“Filing and publishing [the plaintiff’s] credit scores was [sic] neither required, necessary, essential nor otherwise supportable since the credit scores/report did not relate to or ‘evidence’ the Account sought to be collected and provided no assistance in determining whether judgment should be entered against [the plaintiff] in the state court action,” the case says. 

The plaintiff did not authorize PYOD to obtain and/or use her credit score for any purpose, and the defendant failed to certify the purpose for which it obtained and used the credit score with a credit reporting agency, the lawsuit says. 

Moreover, the suit alleges PYOD, through acts or omissions, negligently and/or recklessly failed to supervise its agent debt collection attorneys by failing to take reasonable steps to protect consumers’ privacy rights. 

“The fact that the same offending documents have been filed by various law firms throughout the country on behalf of Defendant PYOD indicates that it is Defendant PYOD itself that is responsible for providing the redacted documents to its attorneys,” the complaint claims. 

The lawsuit looks to represent consumers nationwide who had their consumer reports/credit scores published in various judicial court actions by PYOD regardless of the identity of the law firm that filed the state court debt collection on its behalf within the last two years. 

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