UDAAP Council Weekly UDAAP Standards Report – 12/03/14

Every week, courts around the United States issue decisions addressing aspects of civil UDAAP claims.

In an effort to illuminate the UDAAP standards, below is a sampling of some of this week’s UDAAP decisions on the meaning of unfair, deceptive, and abusive.

Deceptive

• A debtor failed to state a claim under Section 1692e of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act where she alleged a debt collector had deceived her regarding her debt by sending her documents relating to another debtor’s debt, because the facts showed that she was not actually confused by the documents. Salaimeh v. Messerli & Kramer, P.A., United States District Court for the District of Minnesota.
• A debt collector’s letter that appeared to offer information about a loan modification program but also stated it was an attempt to collect a debt would confuse the least sophisticated consumer and therefore the debtor stated a plausible claim for relief under Section 1692e of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Gregory v. Home Retention Services, Inc., United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
• The use of the term “settlement offer” and reference to the offer as being given in connection with “tax season” in a debt collector’s letter did not constitute deceptive conduct under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The FDCPA does not prohibit debt collectors from extending bona fide settlement offers, and the letter’s reference to “tax season” did not imply that the debt collector would refuse to settle after tax season was over. Kryluk v. Northland Group, Inc., United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Abusive

• A claim that a lender scheduled a trustee’s sale of property and refused to postpone it while a borrower’s loan modification application was pending stated a claim for abusive foreclosure practices under a California statute prohibiting “dual tracking,” as well as California’s Unfair Competition Law. Even though the sale never took place, the purpose of the statute was to require lenders to give borrowers a clear answer regarding modification before commencing foreclosure. Foronda v. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Inc., United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Note that this Weekly UDAAP Standards Report serves to highlight only some of the many weekly developments in the law around these standards.

Please feel free to contact me for more information or to discuss these cases or any other UDAAP developments.