Collection agencies sued for reporting disputed debts on man's credit report

SHERMAN - A Plano resident has filed a lawsuit against several collection agencies for reporting debts on his credit report after he disputed the debts' validity.

Clayton Taylor filed suit against Cavalry Portfolio Services, Equable Ascent Financial and the Retail Merchants Association Inc. doing business as Credit Bureau of Louisiana formerly known as Credit Bureau of Shreveport, on May 7 in The Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division.

In January 2011, Taylor claims he discovered that the defendants were each reporting alleged debts on his credit report. He disputed the alleged debts with each debtor and they did not timely respond to the dispute letter, the suit states.

Taylor states that defendant Cavalry Portfolio Services dated a response within the appropriate time but sent the response beyond the applicable 30 days.

The defendants are accused of violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Texas Debt Collection Act and the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Consumer Protection Act by using false representations and deceptive means to collect an alleged debt.

They also failed to provide Taylor with a written statement either denying or admitting the inaccuracy or stating that the third-party debt collector has not had sufficient time to complete the investigation of the inaccuracy, the suit alleges.

The plaintiff is asking the court to issue an injunction to prevent the defendants from its violative behavior and for an award of actual damages, statutory damages, treble damages, interest, attorney's fees and court costs.

A jury trial is requested.

Taylor is represented by Dennis R. Kurz of Weisberg & Meyers in Houston.

U.S. District Judge Ron Clark is assigned to the case.

Case No. 4:12-cv-00263