FDCPA Class Action certified against NY Law Firm

The New York Law Journal reports that a New York law firm sent debt collection letters in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.. If the law firm is found liable, it could be made to pay damages of 1 percent of its net worth plus attorneys ‘fees. Apparently, the firm is accused of send a validation notice without verifying the balance due. The FDCPA has a requirement of active involvement by an attorney who sends out consumer collectoin notices. This requirement under the FDCPA imposes a large, if not an ambiguous duty upon attorneys involved in consumer collectoin. Just exactly what is meaningful attorney involvement is not defined by the statute. Nevertheless, there are quite a few cases that tell us what it isn’t and courts are not hesitant to award damages to consumers along with attorneys fees when an attorneys involvement does not meet the standard that a court may perceive to meet the statute.
There are some things that a Consumer Collection attorney can do to avoid this trap of not complying with the meaningful attorney invovlement under the FDCPA.
1. For attorneys that handle a large volume of cases, make sure that an attorney takes a moment or two to review a file before sending out a demand letter.
2. When a consumer sends in a dispute letter, make sure that an attorney review the letter. Document the file to show that an attorney has reviewed the letter and has responded accordingly. Document the file to show that the attorney has reviewed the response letter as well.
3. Under the FDCPA, when a consumer timely sends in a dispute letter, the attorney must provide confirmation of the debt. Neither the FDCPA nor the FTC define what constitutes accceptable confirmation of the debt. However, an attorney would be well advised not to punt with internally generated documents. Rather, an affidavit from the client or preferrably, a statment of account would remove any doubt concerning an attorneys meaningful involvement in a consumer case.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 11th, 2006 and is filed under Debt Collection Tricks and Traps . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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