Three Debt Collectors Taking Fire for Alleged FDCPA Violations

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A proposed class action lawsuit claims Midland Credit Management, Inc., Midland Funding, LLC, and Encore Capital Group, Inc. violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The complaint notes that Encore Capital Group, Inc. is the parent company of Midland Credit Management and Midland Funding.

The plaintiff, who filed the case in New York, alleges the defendants misrepresented his right to dispute his debt when they included in a collection notice language that could lead an unsophisticated consumer to assume “that his option to dispute the debt could only be in writing.”

From the lawsuit:

“An unsophisticated consumer would assume from the above-mentioned language, that he has no option to make an oral dispute. Such language overshadowed and contradicted the validation notice stated at the beginning of the letter and was ‘misleading’ since it leaves the debtor with the false notion that disputing an alleged debt requires a written communication to be sent to [the defendants’ address].”