MCA Helpline, A Debt Settlement Company, is Sued For Tortious Interference

The Broward County Courthouse. Photo by Georgia Guercio

Debt settlement is under fire again. This time it’s a trio of defendants, namely MCA Helpline, LLC, Decision One Debt Relief, LLC and Todd Fisch individually, according to a complaint filed by plaintiff Everest Business Funding on Wednesday in Broward County, Florida.

Everest is seeking damages for Defendants’ tortious interference with at least a dozen of its merchant contracts.

“Defendants have engaged and continue to engage in the business practice of making misleading representations to Everest’s customers; namely, promising to save the merchants money on their existing contracts with Everest when they have no intention or ability to uphold such a promise,” the complaint states. “In so doing, Defendants tortiously interfere with Everest’s merchant agreements by inducing the merchants to breach their contractual obligations to Everest in favor of entering a new payment relationship with the debt relief company.”

Fisch is alleged to be the mastermind behind both MCA Helpline and Decision One Debt Relief.

Complicit ISOs were also put on notice. “To the extent any specific ISOs or their affiliates who have ISO Agreements with Everest have leaked information about Everest’s merchants to Defendants, or to any other third party, such conduct constitutes both a breach of the ISO Agreement and tortious interference with Everest’s merchant contracts,” it reads. “Through the course of discovery in this lawsuit, Everest plans to add as additional Defendants, as yet unidentified ISOs, which have been working with Defendants to target Everest’s merchant accounts in violation of their contractual agreements.”

Everest has been vigorously pursuing debt settlement companies. In September, they, along with Yellowstone Capital, filed a lawsuit against eight defendants (later amended to include 1 more) in New York.

Another lawsuit examining similar issues was also filed last year in New York. In Pearl Gamma Funding and Pearl Beta Funding v Creditors Relief, Pearl tacked on a defamation claim in addition to tortious interference. That case is still pending.

Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.