Woman Sues over Portfolio Recovery Phone Calls

A woman filed a Portfolio Recovery phone calls lawsuit against one of the largest debt buying companies in the country alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

Plaintiff Rosa H. filed the Portfolio Recovery phone calls lawsuit in Florida federal court. The lawsuit was filed on Feb. 27, 2018.

According to the Portfolio Recovery phone calls lawsuit, Rosa says that she, a resident of Florida, received about a thousand telephone calls in an attempt by the company to collect on an alleged debt that she owed.

According to the lawsuit, Portfolio had “intentionally harassed and abused plaintiff on numerous occasions by calling several times during one day, and on back to back days, with such frequency as can reasonably be expected to harass.”

Rosa also claims that some of the calls that were made used an “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) and without her consent, an alleged violation of to the TCPA.

According to the lawsuit, an ATDS “has the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator (including but not limited to a predictive dialer) or an artificial or pre-recorded voice…”

Rosa says that she could tell that an ATDS system was used because when she took the calls, she could hear a pause when she answered the phone that would then be followed by a voice on the line.

The exorbitant number of calls, however, was placed in an attempt to collect on a credit card loan debt that she owed.

Over the last four years, Rosa says, she instructed them to stop calling her cellular phone. She says she was able to reach a live agent on Oct. 5, 2017 when she was able to advise them to stop calling her. Each call, she says, was placed without her express consent.

According to the lawsuit, the company has a corporate policy of using ATDS to contact individuals just as it did to Rosa. As a result, the company has numerous complaints against them. Despite the complaints, alleges the lawsuit, they have continued to place calls using ATDS despite consumers’ requests to stop.

Each and every call, the lawsuit addresses, placed without Rosa’s consent was an “injury in the form of a nuisance and annoyance.” This also includes the “unnecessary trouble” of answering calls that were placed to her, and even for calls that were left unanswered, Rosa “had to waste time to unlock the cellular telephone and deal with missed call notifications and calls logs that reflected the unwanted calls.”

The Portfolio Recovery phone calls lawsuit was filed on a count including the violation of the TCPA, and violation of the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA). Other violations also include counts for the violation of the FDCPA.

Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)

The TCPA, also known as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, was enacted by Congress in 1991 to curtail the growing number of telephone marketing calls. The TCPA regulates unsolicited faxes, text messages, telemarketing calls, auto-dialed calls, and prerecorded calls.

TCPA rules and regulations that telemarketers are required to follow include some of the following:

• Receive a consumer’s prior written consent before making any robocalls.
• Provide an automated and interactive “opt-out” mechanism during robocalls for consumers to let telemarketers know that they would no longer like to be called.
• No longer let an “established business relationship” be sufficient and that through TCPA regulations, a prior expressed written consent is required.

The Portfolio Recovery Phone Calls Lawsuit is Case No. 4:18-cv-00112-MW-CAS, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Tallahassee Division.

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If you were contacted on your cell phone by a company via an unsolicited text message (text spam) or prerecorded voice message (robocall), you may be eligible for compensation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

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