TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) – More bad news for a repeat plaintiff whose telemarketing case against Credit One has gone horribly wrong.
On April 12, New Jersey federal judge Anne Thompson added more than $70,000 to an already six-figure punishment against Adam Lieberman and wife Genese, for trying to include Credit One in his long list of Telephone Consumer Protect Act targets.
Lieberman once claimed he made one-third of his annual income from lawsuits brought under the TCPA, which allows plaintiffs to sue telemarketers and debt collectors and impose penalties of up to $1,500 per call.
Previous Legal Newsline coverage has chronicled professional plaintiffs, one of who admitted to trying to game the system to manufacture calls. Another plaintiff has made more than $800,000 filing lawsuits.
Lieberman only filed a handful of his lawsuits, but his arbitration case against Credit One has him facing more than $300,000 in penalties. When he filled out a credit card application for his wife, he used his own phone number as a contact.
The Liebermans went into default on the card’s balance. Credit One called Adam’s phone number more than 600 times to try to collect.
Adam went into arbitration to allege the calls were made using an automatic telephone dialing system and that they were unlawful harassment.
But Credit One filed cross-claims against the Liebermans and pointed to a clause in the customer agreement that required the Liebermans to pay the company’s attorneys fees and costs if they provided the wrong phone number, pursued legal action against it and lost.
That’s what happened. An arbitrator declared the Liebermans should pay Credit One $286,064.62.
The company filed a motion in federal court in February 2021 to confirm the arbitration award, which was granted. It then asked for more money because it incurred more fees and more costs confirming the arbitration award.
Judge Thompson granted the request, leaving the total amount at $359,948.69.
“The court finds that the counsel for Credit One did a very professional job in this case, successfully arguing against the Liebermans’ opposition and obtaining judgment,” she wrote.
Yitzchak Zelman represented the Liebermans, while Andrew Soven of Holland and Knight represented Credit One.