In Lyon v. Bergstrom Law, Ltd., 2016 WL 4161107, at *2–3 (E.D.Cal., 2016), Judge Drozd denied a motion to dismiss alleging FDCPA violations based on voicemail messages that did not disclose the FDCPA’s mini-Miranda.
Section 1692e(11) includes a non-exclusive list of conduct that constitutes a false or misleading representations. Section 1692e(11) provides the following conduct is a violation of the FDCPA: The failure to disclose…in [the] initial oral communication that the debt collector is attempting to collect a debt and that any information obtained will be used for that purpose, and the failure to disclose in subsequent communications that the communication is from a debt collector…[. Courts have held that not disclosing the above information in a message left for the debtor can be a violation of § 1692e(11). See Costa v. National Action Financial Services, 634 F. Supp. 2d 1069 (E.D. Cal. 2007) (finding a voice mail message stating the caller received a phone call in her office for the plaintiff and asking her to return the call were “communications” within the definition of section 1692e(2)); Hosseinzadeh, 387 F. Supp. 2d at *1104 (finding messages conveying the fact there was an important matter to attend to and instructions how to do so were “communications” within the meaning of the statute); see also Foti v. NCO Financial Systems, Inc., 424 F. Supp. 2d 643 (S.D. N.Y. 2006) (finding that a message solely identifying the debt collector as “NCO Financial Systems” was insufficient to satisfy disclosure requirement of § 1692e(11) when the message left for the plaintiff contained “no other suggestion or clue that the correspondence [was] from a debt collector”).