The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday that it has reached a $9 million civil settlement, along with the district attorneys of Los Angeles, Riverside and Santa Clara counties, that sets strict phone call parameters for one of the largest third-party debt collection companies operating worldwide.
The settlement stems from a lawsuit that alleged Allied Interstate LLC, its parent company, iQor Holdings Inc., and affiliated firms engaged in illegal debt collection practices, including calling consumers with excessive frequency, failing to cease calling even when advised that they had reached a wrong number, and using a “predictive dialer” to place calls to consumers’ cell phones without their consent.
District Attorney Summer Stephan said those practices violated the state’s Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act.