Brindisi, as he appeared in a campaign ad slamming Charter Spectrum in the summer of 2018.

Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-N.Y.), who made his battle with Spectrum into an election issue in 2018, is not done with the cable company yet.

This week, Brindisi appealed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to launch an investigation into the cable company’s debt collection practices.

“Fighting Spectrum on rising rates also includes making sure they can’t use debt collection as another money-making tactic,” said Brindisi. “And the only way to get to the bottom of this is for the CFPB to ask the questions I outline in my letter.”

Brindisi is targeting Credit Management L.P., a Plano, Tex. collection agency that Spectrum relies on to pursue former customers, often to seek compensation for “lost or unreturned equipment.”

“After believing they had paid their final bill in full and returned their equipment, customers are finding themselves face-to-face with this unknown debt collector from Plano, Texas,” Brindisi told the CFPB. “One former Spectrum customer learned from Credit Management L.P. that they owed over $100 long after amicably ending their service. Spectrum never notified this customer they owed a penny. Instead, they sent them to collections, potentially damaging their credit rating and giving up their social security number and other personal information.”

In some cases, customers are being turned over to the collection agency for as little as an allegedly unreturned remote control. As a result, consumers are ending up with damaged credit because of the reported collection activity.

“The Better Business Bureau has logged hundreds of complaints about Credit Management L.P.,” Brindisi added. “Many of these complaints have been about their debt collection practices related to cable and internet companies. Customers have specifically named Spectrum and other cable companies as the source of the erroneous debt. A consumer should not be sent to a debt collector, without warning, for a missing remote control. That is both unfair and a sneaky way Spectrum might be padding its bottom line, which would be unacceptable, worthy of investigation and potentially in violation of federal rules.”

Brindisi wants the CFPB to determine how many customers are being pursued by Credit Management, L.P., how those customers are contacted, how much of the collection agency’s efforts relate to being compensated for allegedly unreturned equipment as opposed to late or non-payment of monthly cable bills, and how the agency handles customers’ private personal information.  Brindisi also wants the CFPB to determine if the collection practices violate federal law.

Brindisi also urged constituents being contacted by Credit Management L.P., on behalf of Spectrum, to call his office at (315) 732-0713.

In addition to running campaign commercials that slammed Spectrum, Brindisi has doggedly pursued the cable industry as a freshman congressman representing an Upstate New York district extending from the east end of Lake Ontario through Central New York to the Pennsylvania border, including the cities of Utica, Rome and Binghamton. Brindisi introduced the Transparency for Cable Consumers Act, promising to provide better oversight of cable and internet providers and hold companies accountable that are fined by a state Public Service Commission. In November, Brindisi slammed Spectrum in an opinion piece outlining his efforts to hold Spectrum accountable. Brindisi also recently launched a district-wide survey of home internet speeds and service to determine if internet customers are getting advertised internet speeds.