Oops..Collection Firm Gets Hammered for Dragging Wrong Man to Court

[richlevy]

From here

The phone rang. A woman from a law firm representing a collection agency wanted to know if Mark Hoyte was Mark Hoyte, and he said he was. They were calling to collect $919 on a Sears-Citi card.

A judge ruled that Mark Hoyte was entitled to be compensated wages lost the day he was summoned to court. He was wrongly sued for credit card debt.


Mr. Hoyte said he never had that credit card.
Then the woman wanted to know if his Social Security number ended in 92, and Mr. Hoyte said no, it ended in 33.
“She says to me, ‘Your date of birth is in 1972,’ ” Mr. Hoyte, 46, recalled in an interview.
Clearly, they had the wrong Mark Hoyte. But that did not stop the lawyers at Pressler & Pressler from suing him. They swore out a complaint and sent a summons to Mr. Hoyte, ordering him to be in court last Monday.

“Why didn’t you check these things out before you take out a summons and a complaint?” Judge Dear asked. “Why don’t you check out who you’re going after?”
Mr. Wang said that Pressler & Pressler used an online database called AnyWho to hunt for debtors.
“So you just shoot in the dark against names; if there’s 16 Mark Hoytes, you go after without exactly knowing who, what, when and where?” Judge Dear asked.

The answer, of course is that so far the entire legal system has accepted sloppiness on the part of businesses, including collection firms and banks and completely disregarded lost time and aggravation to civilians forced to deal with the consequences. Pressler & Pressler didn't think it would cost them anything to be wrong - but this time it did.

The judge said he was prepared to dismiss the case and wanted Mr. Hoyte compensated for lost wages.
“Your honor,” Mr. Wang said, “I’m personally not willing to compensate him.”
No, the judge said; he meant that the law firm, Pressler & Pressler — one of the biggest in the collection industry — should pay the $115. He would hold a sanctions hearing, a formal process of penalizing the law firm for suing the wrong man.

FINALLY!