The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Crawford v. Recovery Partners, partially granted plaintiff's motion to amend his complaint against defendant, Recovery Partners, for the defendant's communication of false information to plaintiff regarding his debt and for reporting false information to various credit bureaus.
More specifically, the Court ruled that plaintiff's allegations of defendant's violations on their face are sufficient to support a claim under the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA"), the New York Consumer Collection Practices Act, and the New York Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Defendants had violated the FCRA and New York Consumer Collection Practices Act by furnishing information to one or more consumer reporting agencies about their transactions or experiences with consumers, failing to review all relevant information provided by the consumer reporting agencies pursuant, failing to adequately conduct an investigation with respect to the disputed information as required by FCRA, failing to inform the consumer reporting agencies that the investigation was incomplete or inaccurate as required by FRCA and instead falsely maintaining that the information was complete.
Defendants also violated the New York Consumer Collection Practices Act by telling the plaintiff that they had disclosed to the credit reporting agencies information affecting the plaintiff's reputation for credit worthiness without informing the agencies of the existence of a dispute as to the information at issue.
Lastly, the court found that the plaintiff's allegations that defendant's deceptive practices had violated the New York Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act were factually sufficient to state a claim for relief. Plaintiff's allegations under the other statutes demonstrated that defendants had engaged in "deceptive and unfair trade practices" under the New York Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.