Earns Home Depot
A Home Depot customer who claims his credit was wrongly tarnished after he refused to pay a $28 late fee has filed a $250,209 lawsuit against the home-improvement chain.
(The Associated Press/File photo)
A Portland-area Home Depot customer who refused to pay a $28 late fee filed a $250,209 lawsuit against the chain after learning that his credit score had plummeted by 100 points.
David Shannon contends that a representative for the Home Depot credit card wrongfully notified credit reporting agencies about him -- and that now, five months after the dispute over the unpaid fee arose, he has run into difficulties trying to refinance his home because of the "precipitous drop" in his "otherwise stellar" credit score.
Shannon's lawsuit was filed last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
A Home Depot spokesman didn't offer comment for this story other than to say its private label credit card is operated by Citi -- also known as Citibank.
According to Shannon's lawsuit:
Shannon has had a Home Depot credit card for years and regularly paid any balance in full at the close of each month. In April, Shannon charged $155.61 on his credit card.
"Plaintiff requested his bank send payment (in full) in that amount on or about the due date for that payment, April 26, 2015," the suit states. "Defendant received timely payment for all monies owed -- payment in full. If payment in full was received after April 26, it was delivered within hours or minutes of that date, an immaterial delay."
Even so, the credit card company charged Shannon a $28.20 late fee. And despite Shannon's objections, it began charging late fees on the original late fee -- totaling $209.51, which represents only late fees and no actual goods bought, the suit states.
Home Depot "embarked upon a harassment campaign designed to bother, vex and leverage" Shannon into paying up by causing "dozens of electronic telephone calls to be made to Plaintiff," the suit says. "These calls were difficult to stop. Plaintiff was required, on more than one occasion, to wait through long automated messages and multi-part, touch-tone responses, to get to a live human being. Plaintiff made multiple requests to stop calling Plaintiff's home and disturbing his wife and young children."
At one point, Shannon tried to call a truce and offered to pay the "trumped-up late fees," but the company refused to retract "false" and "defamatory statements" it made to the credit reporting agencies, the suit says.
Because Shannon's home-refinancing application is still being processed, he doesn't know how much worse of a deal he'll receive because of the negative credit reports, the suit states.
Shannon seeks $209.51 for the amount his Home Depot credit card currently claims he owes and $250,000 for future interest he stands to pay. Shannon also is asking a judge to force a representative from the Home Depot credit card to retract negative reports to the credit reporting agencies to restore Shannon's credit.
Troutdale attorney Richard Todd is representing Shannon.
Todd is law-firm partners with an attorney named David Shannon. David Shannon the plaintiff and David Shannon the attorney appear to be the same person, but neither would confirm that directly to The Oregonian/OregonLive or comment on the suit.
The firm Todd & Shannon specializes in civil litigation, including personal injury lawsuits, fraud cases and consumer disputes.
Read the lawsuit.
-- Aimee Green
503-294-5119