You Can’t Win If You Don’t Dispute

An Oklahoma federal court found that a consumer must say they are disputing a debt to be able to make out a case that the debt collector wrongly failed to update a credit report tradeline as disputed.

The consumer in Johnson v. I.C. Systems had an $800 past due Sprint account. Defendant began credit reporting the account in 2021. After noticing the tradeline in 2023, plaintiff called the debt collector and during a recorded call, said: “Is this balance of $793 because of equipment? Because my monthly bill wasn’t that high.”

After Defendant did not treat this comment as a dispute and did not update its credit reporting with a dispute compliance condition code, Plaintiff filed suit alleging that Defendant violated the FDCPA. The Plaintiff’s theory was that reporting the tradeline without an updated dispute was actionable because of the Plaintiff’s 2023 “dispute” call.  

Relying on the recording, the Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment claiming that Plaintiff never disputed the debt. Plaintiff countered that the 2023 inquiry about the “balance of $793 because of equipment” was proof that the Plaintiff gave Defendant notice there was a disputed debt.

The court was not persuaded by Plaintiff’s argument, concluding that the single call did not include “any evidence showing that Plaintiff disputed the Account.” In fact, because Plaintiff’s question about the accuracy of the balance was answered in real time, meaning that the call ended with Plaintiff knowing that the balance did include equipment charges, “no reasonable factfinder could conclude that Plaintiff disputed the debt with Defendant during the call.” In a nutshell, answering the consumer’s question during the call resolved the dispute.

Curious as to what’s a consumer dispute? Don’t worry, we are here to help!