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Bank of America Faces Debt Collection Harassment Class Action Lawsuit

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New York, NY: A class action lawsuit has been filed against Bank of America (BoFA) by a Florida resident, over allegations America' biggest bank is in violation of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act.

Filed by Broward County resident Marc Katz, the lawsuit, entitled, Marc Katz v. Bank of America NA, case number 0:13-cv-61372, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleges BoFA uses automated dialers to call the cellphones of people who have debt with the bank. In the putative class action, Katz claims that in 2010 BoFA launched a mortgage foreclosure action against him in Florida state court. The bank then continued to call his cellphone using automated dialing systems in an effort to try and collect the purported debt. This occurred even after the bank was told to contact Katz' attorney for anything related to the foreclosure action, according to the lawsuit.

"Despite receipt of a letter of representation, and its inherent cease communication directive, defendant' continued collection efforts involved the placement of autodialed calls and/or recorded messages to the cellular telephones of allegedly delinquent consumers,"the class action lawsuit states.

Further, Katz claims that when he answered the calls a machine-operated voice would advise him to "please hold for the next available representative,"forcing him to wait and listen to music or "dead air"before an actual person came on the line, the lawsuit states. "Defendant' persistent and unlawful calling campaign was carried out with the intent to abuse and harass the plaintiff,"the lawsuit claims.

Katz launched the class action lawsuit on behalf of a putative class consisting of all individuals in Florida who were the subject of Bank of America' debt collection activities related to their residential property in Florida and who were represented by counsel with respect to said debt and still received pre-recorded or auto-dialed calls on their cellphones from the bank over the past four years.

"The defendant' policy and practice of refusing to acknowledge attorney letters of representation is so pervasive that the class of affected consumers is so numerous that joinder of all members of the class is impracticable,"the lawsuit states.

The complaint seeks statutory and actual damages, a permanent injunction barring the bank and any other party from calling Katz regarding the alleged debt, as well as a court declaration that the bank' practices violated both the TCPA and the FCCPA.

Katz is represented by Bret L. Lusskin Jr. of Bret Lusskin PA and by Scott D. Owens.

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Reader Comments

Posted by

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A few years ago I opened a bank account with chase bank in naples fl. Jennifer was the branch manager at the time. When I went to fill my BMW with gas , my card was declined I then called Chase Bank and told them there was something like $6,500 or more in my account. B ack then I lived in a two story town house. I was helping a family in need and they had 2 small children,so I said they could stay with me till they found a place to rent. my chase card and security codes were in a lock box. Well , when I went to fill my gas tank the computer said declined and I knew for a fact I had quite a bit of money in my account . Without my consent, OF COURSE!!!! my bedroom was on second floor, somehow jerry, the fiancée of the woman with the children was able to pick the lock on my box and take my card then go to the Circle k up the street from where I lived and got hold of my card as well as password codes that I stored in my lock box . over a 2 month period he syphoned about $6,500 from my account he would wait till I slept and take my card then put in back in lock box. I reported this instance to Chase bank and I spoke to a woman in the fraud dept and all calls were being recorded, this representative from Chase informed me that the money that was stolen from my account would be put back into my account in 24 hours and repeated back to her six times " so 24 hours from the time I called and reported the fraud that the monies would be put back into my account and she reassured me numerous times that my money would be in my account in 24 hours. Well I called after the 4 hour period and the money was never put back into my account. I was infuriated I ended up going to the bank, where I opened my account and sat down with Jennifer the branch manager and all she told me was that whoever the Chase representative was in the fraud dept. gave me incorrect information!!! I then told Jennifer, if she pulled the tapes from the ATM machine at the Circle K in Naples, she would see that a black male, who by the way was Haitian and I am a Caucasian female .Jennifer's response was that there was NOTHING SHE COULD DO!!!!!!!!! I still to this day i have the dates and times regarding the communication I had with Chase employees and I told her to listen to the recording that revealed the information I was given as far as the money being placed back into my account. N othing was ever done and shortly after that I had a serious medical crisis that required major surgery and hospitalizations and basically I got screwed BIG TIME BY CHASE BANK

Posted by

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I had a bank account with them last year and was victim of fraud and they refused to correct my account and they made it to where I can't get a bank account anywhere......

Posted by

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Suffered very similar situation with two different giant collection agencies and still going

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