Edge v. Professional Claims Bureau
At the time that Professional had the “social search” conducted to obtain Plaintiff’s address, it had been referred a debt for collection, guaranteed by Plaintiff, from North Shore Hospital. The referral of that debt gave Professional a permissible purpose for obtaining the credit information pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1681b. Specifically, Professional sought the information in the collection of a credit transaction involving Plaintiff. This is a clearly permissible purpose under Section 1681b(3)(A). The existence of this permissible purpose constitutes a complete defense to the claim that the information was obtained under false pretenses under Section 1681n(b) and therefore entitles Professional to summary judgment. See Advanced Conservation, 934 F.Supp. at 54-55; Baker, 850 F.Supp. at 264.
Doesn't this mean that any CC account you have will contain a 'credit transaction' and therefore when said CC account is assigned to the CA, they then have permissible purpose?
And if your account is shopped from CA to CA, you could have lots of PP pulls over the life of the collection process?
In Pinto case everyone is citing, the following statement seems to suggest there are cases where it is permissible:
By defining “credit” for purposes of the FCRA, FACTA
helped to clarify the specific circumstances in which credit
reporting agencies may furnish credit reports to debt collectors
under § 1681b(a)(3)(A). Post-FACTA, it is apparent that
debt collection is not always a permissible purpose for obtaining
credit reports.
So my take is you are alleged to have credit with CC, CA was told so by CC, CA has permissible purpose.
Conversely, in the Pinto case, a Towing Account was opened involuntarily, this is not the same as you voluntarily opening a CC account.
Where am I wrong here?
One grey area that the Pinto case might have given rise to is purchased debt. I suppose one could argue that they voluntarily open an account with ACME CREDIT. Let's say that your defaulted loan is then sold to BADCA COMPANY. One could argue that they did not voluntarily open a credit account with BADCA.
Here is ruling in NY that I cited at the top of this reply, for those interested:
Message Edited by JimmyMagno on
03-15-2008 02:35 PM
