Debt-Consolidation Firm Violates TCPA’s ‘Spirit and Intent,’ Alleges Class Action
Beyond Finance, a provider of debt-consolidation services, committed “knowing and intentional” violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and didn’t maintain procedures “reasonably adapted to avoid any such violation,” alleged plaintiff Radley Bradford’s class action Wednesday (docket 3:23-cv-01904) in U.S.…
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District Court for Southern California in San Diego. In Beyond Finance’s “overzealous attempt” to market its services and grow its business significantly, the company continues to make “unsolicited telemarketing phone calls without the prior express written consent of the call recipients,” alleged the class action. Through this “method,” the defendant has invaded Bradford’s “personal privacy” and that of members of his class, it said. Bradford’s cellphone number was listed with the national do not call registry since March 2019, it said. The Texas resident didn’t give Beyond Finance his cellphone number “at any point in time,” nor did he give permission for the company to call it, it said. Bradford also didn’t have “an established business relationship” with Beyond Finance during the time of its phone solicitations, or a “personal relationship” with the company “at any point in time,” it said. In an August 2022 email after a solicitation call from a Beyond Finance agent, Bradford asked the agent to be removed from the company’s contact list and added to its internal do not call list, said the class action. In so doing, Bradford “revoked any type of consent” the company may have relied on “to contact him with telemarketing calls,” it said. But the company nevertheless “continued to harass” Bradford with “further telemarketing calls,” it said. “Upon information and belief,” Beyond Finance “made the same or substantially similar” phone solicitations “en masse to thousands of consumers nationwide,” said the class action. Bradford “suffered an invasion of a legally protected interest in privacy, which is specifically protected by the TCPA,” it said. “The TCPA was intended to give individuals control over how and where they receive telephonic communications,” said the complaint. When Beyond Finance phones consumers without their consent, it “fails to respect the limitations imposed by the TCPA,” it said. In so doing, the company invades consumers’ privacy “and violates the spirit and intent behind the TCPA,” it said.