81st TCPA Action vs. Capital One Seeks to Halt Its Unlawful Debt Collection Calls

Capital One made debt collection calls to Deborah Duncan using an artificial or prerecorded voice, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and California’s Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (RFDCPA), alleged Duncan’s complaint Monday (docket 3:24-cv-00474) in U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego. The TCPA was designed to prevent calls like those described in Duncan’s complaint, and to protect the privacy of citizens like her, it said. The California legislature determined that unfair or deceptive collection practices “undermine the public confidence which is essential to the continued functioning of the banking and credit system,” said the complaint. The legislature further determined that there’s “a need to ensure that debt collectors and debtors exercise their responsibilities to one another with fairness, honesty, and due regard for the rights of others,” it said. Its “explicit purpose” in enacting the RFDCPA “was to prohibit debt collectors from engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the collection of consumer debts and to require debtors to act fairly in entering into and honoring such debts,” it said. Duncan “maintained good standing” on her two Capital One credit card accounts until August, when she fell into financial hardship and was unable to maintain the regular monthly payments, said the complaint. After Duncan went into default on her accounts, agents for Capital One called her cellphone incessantly, using a prerecorded voice, it said. The San Diego County resident received as many as two calls a day from Capital One, “sometimes every day,” it said. Duncan received more than 96 calls from Capital One even after her attorney sent the company a letter Nov. 10 that “clearly revoked” any prior consent to contact the plaintiff via the use of an automated dialing system, text or other method, including calls with prerecorded or automated voice messages, it said. Duncan received at least two calls in a single day, and often more than seven calls in a given week, “based on her recollection of the frequency of calls,” plus the records of calls “that she has in her possession,” it said. Court records show that Duncan’s complaint is the 81st TCPA action filed against Capital One since February 2012.