In its proposed debt collection rules, the CFPB would allow a debt collector to satisfy the FDCPA requirement to provide the validation notice by sending the debtor an email or text message that includes a hyperlink to a secure website on which the notice is accessible, subject to a series of specific conditions set forth in the proposed rules.  The permissibility of that approach under the FDCPA was called into question by the decision issued last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Lavallee v. Med-1 Solutions, LLC.  In the decision, the Seventh Circuit ruled that the emails sent by a debt collector to the plaintiff containing hyperlinks to a server operated by the debt collector’s sister company on which the plaintiff could access and download the validation notices did not satisfy the FDCPA validation notice requirement.


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