Romine

This case involves the district court’s dismissal of Western Union from a class action lawsuit brought by Steve C. Romine (“Appellant”) against Western Union and Diversified Collection Services (“DCS”), a debt collection agency, for violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692 et seq. (“FDCPA”), which prohibits debt collectors from engaging in abusive, deceptive, and unfair practices. The challenged practice involves Western Union’s Automated Voice Telegram (“AVT”) service, in which Western Union obtains debtors’ telephone numbers by eliciting responses to personal delivery telegrams, then disseminates the unlisted numbers to creditors and collection agencies. The sole issue before us is whether Western Union’s activities amount to a direct or indirect attempt to collect a debt, bringing Western Union within the ambit of the FDCPA. The district judge astutely entered 54(b) certification to resolve this legal issue before proceeding with the trial. Fed. R.Civ.P. 54(b). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We reverse the district court’s judgment dismissing Western Union in this action and remand for further proceedings.

I.

Procedural and…

dissenting:

Western Union’s behavior was not commendable by any means. However, I do not agree that it acted as a debt collector, even indirectly. All Western Union did was transmit the debt collector’s message and obtain the debtor’s phone number for the debt collector. It did not in some roundabout way collect a debt. The most it did was use a devious means to collect the debtor’s telephone number, but telephone number collection is not debt collection.

Perhaps Romine has a cause of action for Western Union’s cynical trading on its hitherto good name. But an action under the FDCPA is not it. In fine, given the rebarba-tive nature of Western Union’s actions, I have a great deal of sympathy for the result which Romine desires, but I am unable to embrace it.

Thus, I respectfully dissent.