A lawsuit has been filed in Clark County Circuit Court alleging that a third-party collection agency has collected or has attempted to collect debts against probate estates for telephone charges that were imposed after the death of a customer.
Plaintiffs Nicholas Dumond and Rebecca Awai are the personal representatives of the estate of the late Mary Dumond, and claim that they contacted AT&T immediately after their mother died and asked the company to cancel her account. Nicholas Dumond, a Jonesboro detective, personally visited an AT&T store to notify the company about his mother’s death. However, AT&T officials told him that they would not discuss the matter with him since he was not listed on his mother’s account.
Several months later, DCM Services, LLC filed a probate claim seeking to collect money from the estate for AT&T’s charges that had incurred after AT&T had been notified that the customer had died.
DCM is a third-party collection agency with a primary focus on resolving estate debt on behalf of various clients. The plaintiffs allege that DCM has filed similar claims to collect these charges for AT&T in numerous other Arkansas probate actions. Consequently, the plaintiffs are asking the court to certify the case as a class action on behalf of all other Arkansas decedent’s estates in which DCM has collected or attempted to collect a claim for AT&T for charges imposed after the customer’s death.
The case seeks damages under the Arkansas Fair Debt Collection Practices Act which prohibits debt collectors from engaging in unfair or deceptive collection actions.
The Plaintiffs are represented by Turner & Turner, Attorneys at Law in Arkadelphia and seek judgment for actual damages, statutory damages, attorney’s fees and costs. The Plaintiffs are also asking the circuit court to declare that probate estates should not be subject to claims for charges imposed by AT&T on deceased customers’ accounts.
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