ORLANDO, Fla. A member of Partners FCU this week filed suit against the Disney Co. credit union, claiming she was harassed by loan collectors repeatedly calling her cell phone the first of what is expected to be a new litigious rash spreading among credit unions and banks.
In her suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of Florida, Jennifer McComb claims the credit union’s 40 collection calls between January and July using an automated service violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act because it was done without the “express consent” of the members. The member says she has records of all of the credit union’s calls to her cell phone. She said the credit union’s policy provided no means for her to remove her cell phone number from the call list.
The new suit, one of several being filed in recent days, comes as a rapidly growing number of members are eschewing their landlines and giving their credit unions their cell phone numbers as their main contact.
The member is asking for $15,000 in damages from Partners FCU and legal fees. A representative of the Burbank, Calif.-based credit union, which serves employees of California’s Disneyland and Florida’s Disneyworld, said management just received the suit and was not prepared to comment.
