Debt Relief Firm Phones Numbers on National DNC Registry, Alleges Complaint

Barbara Silva brought suit against Lendvia to stop the debt relief services company from allegedly making unauthorized telemarketing calls to individuals whose numbers are listed on the national do not call registry without prior express written consent, “or any consent whatsoever,” and to individuals who have requested not to be called. In her Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint Friday (docket 3:24-cv-00155) in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in El Paso, the plaintiff also alleges violations of the Texas Business & Commerce Code. Lendvia called Silva’s El Paso-area-code phone number to generate leads for its debt services, said the complaint. Those calls injured Silva in Texas, creating a “causal link” between Lendvia and the litigation, “exceeding the non-causal affiliation sufficient to support personal specific jurisdiction,” it said. The regulations “enforcing and interpreting” the TCPA require that any person or entity that engages in telemarketing must transmit caller ID information to the calls’ recipients, said the complaint. This prevents a telemarketer from spoofing the phone number from which the telemarketing call is made, it said. The regulations also require telemarketers to provide the name of the telemarketer when available by the telemarketer's carrier and the seller's customer service number, the complaint said. Lendvia didn’t comply with those requirements, “as it provided incorrect information regarding the number from which the calls were being made,” alleged the complaint. Section 302.101 of the Texas Business & Commerce Code prohibits sellers from engaging in telephone solicitations from a location in Texas or to a purchaser located in Texas unless the seller obtains a registration certificate from the Texas secretary of state for the business location from which the solicitation is made, it said. Silva personally listed her cellphone number on the national DNC registry in February 2022 “to gain seclusion from unwanted solicitation phone calls,” said her complaint. Yet she received at least eight phone calls from Lendvia despite not needing its debt relief services, her complaint said.