- Key insight: Credit One's settlement came in a case involving a 1977 California law, the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
- Why it matters: The California Debt Collection Task Force has now won four settlements in cases involving debt-collection practices.
- Supporting data: The $1.9 billion-asset Credit One agreed to pay $10.2 billion to end the five-year legal battle.
Credit One Bank, which specializes in subprime credit cards, moved to end nearly five years of litigation with a group of California district attorneys who claimed its debt-collection practices amounted to harassment.
The DAs — from Riverside, Los Angeles, Santa Clara and San Diego counties — alleged that the $1.9 billion-asset Credit One allowed its vendors to call borrowers up to 10 times daily in violation of California's Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which dates back to 1977.
The California DAs, who together comprise the California Debt Collection Task Force, also alleged that Credit One's vendors continued to call after borrowers asked them to stop, and even when the calls went to wrong numbers.
Certain borrowers received high volumes of calls. One borrower got 550 calls in a seven-month period, while another received 150 in four months, according to the March 2021 complaint filed in Riverside County Superior Court.
"Credit card companies do not have the right to badger consumers and invade their privacy with non-stop phone calls to collect debt," Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said Friday in a press release.
"Bombarding consumers with calls over debts is illegal," Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a separate press release. "Folks may owe money, but companies owe their consumers reasonable civility and consideration."
According to Rosen's office, the court ordered Credit One to implement policies and procedures to prevent unreasonable and harassing collection calls.
For its part, Credit One said in a press release that it "expressly denies that it engaged in any wrongdoing or violation of law" and that it "has always complied with the requirements of California's law as it relates to collection practices and honors all cardmembers' requests to not be called."
The Nevada-based bank added that it agreed to a settlement "solely to avoid the cost and inconvenience of further litigation."
A Credit One spokesperson did not immediately respond to a reporter's inquiry about the settlement's potential impact on its debt-collection efforts going forward.
Credit One agreed to pay a total of $10.2 million, consisting of $9 million in civil penalties and $1.2 million to reimburse the DAs for investigative costs.
Credit One is still contesting another lawsuit — filed by an Alameda, California, woman in August 2025 — that's similar to the one brought by the California DAs.
Plaintiff Rebecca Mingura of Alameda, California, alleged in an August 2025 complaint that she received multiple collection calls on a daily basis. The calls continued even after Mingura's attorney sent Credit One a cease-and-desist letter, according to the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Privately held Credit One, which was founded in California in 1984 as the First National Bank of Marin, has evolved into one of the industry's leading subprime credit card issuers.
According to the company, which operates a single branch in Las Vegas, its mobile app has more than eight million active monthly users.
Credit One moved its headquarters to Las Vegas in 1998 and adopted its current brand identity in 2006. The bank reported net income totaling $411.5 million for the first nine months of 2025, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Full-year 2024 profits totaled $473.6 million.
Credit One's settlement with the DAs is the fourth obtained by the California task force through phone-call-related debt-collection lawsuits.
Allied Interstate, a debt-collection firm based in New Albany, Ohio, entered into a $9 million settlement in October 2018. The $110.6 billion-asset Synchrony Bank, a unit of Synchrony Financial, agreed to pay $3.5 million in November 2021. And the $669 billion-asset Capital One Financial agreed to pay $2 million in December 2022.
