Quest Diagnostics Wrongly Sent Consumers’ Accounts to Debt Collectors, Class Action Says [UPDATE]

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A Florida consumer has filed a proposed class action against Quest Diagnostics in which the woman claims the clinical laboratory operator referred her account to collection agencies after it stopped accepting payments for her payment plan.

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The 20-page lawsuit says that after Quest experienced a “system-wide error” in February 2022, a number of consumers’ accounts were sent to collections regardless of whether they had made timely payments for their payment plans. The plaintiff claims that although she informed Quest that her account had been wrongly sent to collections, Meridian Financial Services and Credit Control Services, two debt collectors who are also named as defendants, have continuously attempted to collect debts she does not owe.

According to the complaint, the plaintiff agreed on October 12, 2021 to pay back the $702.94 she owed the company from having lab tests performed through nine monthly payments of $78.11 that would be automatically deducted from her bank account. The case claims that although the plaintiff’s October, November and December 2021 payments were automatically deducted, she had to log into Quest’s online payment portal to manually pay her January 2022 installment because the sum was never withdrawn.

The filing says the plaintiff’s February installment had also not been deducted from her account, but when she logged into the portal, it did not allow her to make the payment, and the plaintiff was informed that her account had been sent to collections, the suit relays.

The plaintiff spoke to a Quest customer service representative who said that Quest “knowingly” changed its billing system, resulting in a system error that caused accounts belonging to certain consumers to be sent to collections “irrespective of timely payments,” the case relays.

“Realizing the severity of the situation, and with actual knowledge of the fact that Plaintiff did not default on her obligations, Quest’s customer service representative assured Plaintiff that all would be rectified and that she would receive a letter explaining the issue and how Quest planned to remedy it,” the lawsuit reads, although the plaintiff says she waited an entire month and never received a letter from the company.

Instead, the filing says, the plaintiff started to receive an “incessant” number of robocalls from Meridian Financial insisting that she owed outstanding payments. The plaintiff reached out to Quest again on March 14 of last year, and a representative informed her that Quest was aware of the issue and that the company would instruct debt collectors to stop contacting consumers who were current on their payment plans, the suit relays.

The case explains that the plaintiff, tired of “enduring” the countless calls Meridian Financial continued to place, spoke with a Quest supervisor on March 28 who said she would receive a letter forgiving her remaining balance as compensation “for her trouble.” Nevertheless, the plaintiff says she was mailed a collection letter from Credit Control Services requesting $390.50 for the remaining four payments that Quest had supposedly waived.

Per the filing, Quest knew the “system-wide error” wrongly categorized certain accounts as overdue, and instead of rectifying the problem, referred these accounts to debt collectors.

Moreover, Meridian Financial and Credit Control Services continued to engage in collection attempts even though Quest said it had directed the companies to stop contacting the plaintiff and other similarly situated consumers, the complaint contends.

The lawsuit looks to cover all Florida residents who, within the past two years, had payment plans with Quest for payment of a bill over time, were current on payments and were sent correspondence attempting to collect the full balance of the bill.

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