LOS ANGELES — Credit One Bank will pay $10.2 million to resolve a civil lawsuit filed by the District Attorneys’ Offices of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego and Santa Clara counties alleging that the company or its vendors made repeated, intrusive and harassing debt collection calls in violation of California’s consumer protection laws and the state constitutional right to privacy.
“Credit card companies do not have the right to badger consumers and invade their privacy with non-stop phone calls to collect debt,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said. “We are sending a strong message today that companies will not get away with harassing consumers in our state. I thank my office’s Consumer Protection Division and our partner district attorneys for their steadfast commitment to holding companies accountable for unlawful business practices. We will continue to fight for consumers to rein in abusive debt collection.”
California’s Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act permits debt collectors to make calls with frequency that is reasonable under the circumstances. The complaint, filed in Riverside County Superior Court, alleged that Credit One made, and directed calling agent vendors to make, unreasonably frequent and harassing debt collection calls to consumers, even after consumers requested Credit One to stop calling or the company called the wrong number…