A Michigan mortgage company is being sued in federal court for allegedly using artificially generated voice calls to contact consumers without their permission.
Brennan Landy, a resident of Delaware County, Pa., alleges the Clawson, Mich.-headquartered Mortgage One Funding “casts its marketing net too wide” with repeated calls “featuring an artificial or pre-recorded voice to the cellular telephones of consumers nationwide without their prior express written consent.”
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Feb. 24, the lawsuit requests class action status due to the allegedly widespread nature of the unsolicited outreach.
Landy claims the calls violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a federal statute prohibiting companies from telemarketing consumers using prerecorded or artificial voices without first obtaining prior consent.
The plaintiff also says he was solicited despite his number being listed on the National Do Not Call Registry since May 2023. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established that registry to allow consumers to opt out of telemarketing solicitations.
At the heart of Landy’s complaint is his assertion that the artificial caller claimed that Landy had requested the call, which Landy denies in his court filings and instead describes as a deceptive sales tactic. The artificial caller specifically pitched Landy on refinancing.
“To the extent third parties placed the calls, Defendant knowingly received the benefits of such calls and ratified the calls,” claims Landy, who in answering the unsolicited phone call was able to eventually reach a live salesperson from Mortgage One Funding.
Before being transferred to the live representative, Landy says he “knew that he was speaking to an artificial voice because ‘she’ did not speak naturally. There were periods of awkward pauses and odd vocal inflection which would not have occurred if he were speaking to a live human being.”
Requests for comment sent to Mortgage One Funding at an email address listed on annual business registration documents filed with the state of Connecticut in early January were returned as undeliverable. Multiple phone calls were not answered or returned.
According to Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System (NMLS) records, Mortgage One Funding was founded in 2021 and had active licenses in about 40 states as of the end of last year. The company brokers and banks loans.
Injunctions against future calls and $500 in damages for each violation have been proposed by Landy’s attorneys if the action proves successful. The FCC has previously ruled that a company shares liability for illegal telemarketing practices even if contracting out those services.
