Capital One will pay $2 million to settle a civil lawsuit alleging the company made unreasonably excessive calls to collect past due accounts, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced.
“Repeated phone calls from debt collectors intended to annoy, abuse or harass consumers is illegal and wrong,” Gascón said. “My office will continue to do what is best for consumers when companies violate state laws and take advantage of them.”
[the_ad id=”96478″]
Under a judgment negotiated with Capital One, entered Dec. 15 in the Los Angeles County Superior Court and signed by Judge Gregory Keosian, Capital One was ordered to pay a total of $2 million.
- $1.45 million in civil penalties, $362,500 to each of the four District Attorney’s offices involved;
- $300,000 in investigative costs;
- $250,000 in restitution
Capital One, which did not admit wrongdoing, must implement and maintain policies and procedures to prevent harassing debt collection calls for four years after the judgment date. Among them: not make more than seven calls to an account in a consecutive seven-day period; stop all calls to accounts that don’t have a valid telephone number; and no longer call those who request verbally or in writing that they not be contacted.
Beginning in March 2015, Capital One made calls with unreasonably excessive frequency and persisted in calling wrong numbers in an effort to collect their debts, both in violation of California’s Rosenthal Act and the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act, according to the DA’s office.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Consumer Protection Division led the investigation and prosecution as part of the Debt Collection Task Force, which includes San Diego, Santa Clara and Riverside county district attorney’s offices.
This is the third judgment obtained in the joint effort against debt collectors over the past several years.
In October 2018, the prosecution group secured a $9 million judgement against Allied Interstate, LLC, and a $3.5 million judgment against Synchrony Bank last year.
–
Ledesma 99 says
Debts can be aggressively pursued. And many are pursued to the final moments of life. But debt can NEVER result in incarceration in the United States. That’s why pig ticket-pushers are to be held to account for the hundreds of thousands of Americans they’ve incarcerated for unpaid traffic infractions. So, beware America! Whether a bride to be enroute to her wedding, or proud new fathers with their first child, fall a few bucks short to the wrong cashier, them heartless pigs will hunt you with a vengeance!
Tim Scott says
I think “debt can never result in incarceration” is not an actual guarantee in any legal document. I also suspect that in the case of unpaid traffic tickets the relevant jurisdiction is the vehicle code, which notoriously has no genuine standing as law. It only applies because you as a driver have signed a contract saying that you will follow it as if it is law, not because it actually is.
make it make sense says
I’m so happy gascon is dealing with the true heinous crime of excessive calls to people that didn’t fulfill their monetary obligations! Thank you gascon. go after the creditors not the murders, BRAVO!