Where dunning letter reveals a debtor’s account number embedded in a barcode it constitutes a violation of section 1692f(8) of FDPCA

The sole issue raised in the debtor’s FDCPA complaint in Kostik v. ARS Nat. Servs., Inc., No. 3:14-CV-2466 (M.D. Pa. July 22, 2015) was whether the debt collector’s disclosure of Plaintiff’s account number embedded in a barcode constitutes a violation of section 1692f(8) of the FDCPA. The court sided with the debtor on the debt collector’s motion to dismiss. The facts alleged were that the debt collector mailed the debtor a dunning letter in an envelope related to an account that was identified by a number ending in 6284. The return mailing address was not physically printed on the envelope, but through a glassine window. A barcode was printed directly below the return address and visible through the glassine window. The barcode, when electronically scanned, reveals the Plaintiff’s account number that is associated solely with the Account. In its motion to dismiss, the debt collector contended that the FDCPA was not intended to prohibit the disclosure of benign symbols on any envelope sent by a debt collector as means of communicating with a consumer by use of the mails. It acknowledged that section 1692f(8) prohibits any language or symbol from appearing on a debt collection envelope, but argued that it was intended merely to prevent debt collectors from embarrassing debtors by announcing the delinquency on the outside of a debt collection letter envelope. The debt collector asked the Court to adopt a benign symbol exception to section 1692f(8), which the Court refused to do.
The Court noted that by disclosing the barcode to the general public, it increased the risk that Plaintiff would be a victim of identity theft. The court took notice of the fact that barcodes can be easily deciphered by consumers using widely-available free applications for smart phones.
Relying on Third Circuit precedent which held that a debtor’s account number is not benign language, it found that a core purpose of the FDCPA is to curb abusive debt collection practices that cause manifest harms to individuals, among them invasions of individual privacy. The Court applied this reasoning to the disclosure of a bar code. For when the barcode is electronically scanned it reveals the debtor’s name, address, and account number thereby constituting a violation of section 1692f(8) of the FDCPA. The Court did not expressly address Defendant’s other argument that imposing liability due to the possibility of illegal action by a third-party is inappropriate for [t]he only way to view the information stored in the barcode at issue requires illegal action by a third party, making the imposition of liability under the FDCPA inappropriate.

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