Credit One Bank has agreed to pay just over $10 million to settle a civil consumer protection lawsuit alleging the company or its vendors made repeated, intrusive and harassing debt collection calls, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office announced Friday.
The lawsuit — filed by the district attorney’s offices of San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside and Santa Clara counties — alleged Credit One and its agents made an excessive and unreasonable amount of calls, even after consumers said they didn’t wish to receive the calls anymore or when the calls were made to wrong numbers.
The Nevada-based company — which did not admit wrongdoing — was ordered to pay $9 million in civil penalties and $1.2 million in investigative costs in connection with the judgment entered Thursday in Riverside County Superior Court.
The settlement also requires the company to comply with state and federal law involving consumer debt collection, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
“The District Attorney’s Consumer Protection Unit investigated the public’s complaints that Credit One made excessive, harassing debt collection calls and was in active litigation in order to hold them accountable for their harassing conduct as alleged in the complaint,” San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan said in a statement. “This settlement underscores the importance of the work we do to make sure companies are abiding by the state and federal debt collection laws that protect California consumers.”
— City News Service
