Happy Holidays from www.fairdebthelpers.com

Jeffrey Hyslip

I’m currently representing a client against a rather large debt collector in Ohio that sunk to a new low.  In the middle of November this client unfortunately watched her husband’s health deteriorate before her eyes.  To make matters worse, during this trying time she was being contacted by the debt collector.  She explained that her Husband currently didn’t have any income because he was disabled and was only receiving disability income.  Additionally, she explained to the collector that her husband was mortally ill in the hospital and asked for the calls to stop so she could spend her final days with her husband in peace.  In response, the collection agency began abusing her and told her that her husband’s death was not an excuse not to pay.  Additionally, the collector told her that if she didn’t pay the debt they would freeze her bank account and garnish the husbands disability checks (which they can’t).  Its no surprise that the client hung up on the harassing debt collector.  She explained to me that losing money wasn’t as important as spending her husband’s final days with him.

A few days later, her husband’s health significantly deteriorated.  It was clear to everyone involved that this day would be her husband’s last.  On this day the debt collector struck again.  When she picked up her phone and realized it was a debt collector, she kindly asked the collector to call her back because her husband was in the process of passing away.  An important note is that she only answered the call because she believed it was a family member she had previously called to inform them of her husbands imminent passing.

She informed the debt collector of the situation and the debt collector rudely told her that her husband’s death was no excuse to avoid the payment of debt.  She began weeping on the telephone and despite what you’d expect, this didn’t end the harassment.  Unfortunately, the client’s husband passed away very shortly after this telephone call.

Look, I get it; people need to pay their bills.  However, sometimes situations arise that preclude the payment.  My client wasn’t trying to avoid the debt, she was simply preoccupied with her Husband’s passing.  All too frequently debt collectors neglect to realize that there is a real person on the receiving end of the telephone call.  I admit that when I was a collector I sometimes acted in ways I regret.  However, I can say with absolute honesty, I never belittled or harassed anyone; not to mention while the love of their life was being taken from them.  I don’t know who the individual debt collector was on this case, but I can tell you this; I look forward to meeting him at a deposition.

If you or anyone you know is being harassed by debt collectors, have them contact us.  As the largest Nationwide Fair Collection Law firm in the Country we take pride in handing these debt collectors exactly what they deserve; termination notices.

Jeffrey Hyslip

I realized I’ve posted several articles without really explaining what the FDCPA is.  I’ll remedy that right now!

The FDCPA is a Federal Law enacted in 1977.  The statute is directed to third party debt collectors and attorneys who regularly collect debt.  The statute was enacted to prevent these parties from harassing persons that owe debt.  The statute doesn’t support the nonpayment of debt; it simply states that while you are attempting to get your finances in order so that you can pay you shouldn’t be treated inhumanly.

The FDCPA has strong regulations on third party contacts.  The statute states that debt collectors are never allowed to contact any of your friends or family members.  The exception to this provision permits debt collectors to contact third parties only if they don’t know how to get a hold of you.  If they don’t know how to get a hold of you, they are permitted to contact third parties to acquire your location information.  However, they are only allowed to call each person once and they are never allowed to disclose to those persons that you owe a debt!

It’s interesting; I represent a lot of clients that are greatly upset because debt collectors are contacting their friends and family members.  There are websites out there that allow debt collectors to “skip trace” people.  These skip trace reports provide all of your relatives telephone numbers, your address, your neighbors telephone numbers, etc.  When I sue these companies for improper third party contact, the frequent response is, “we called their neighbor because we didn’t know where your client was located.”  My response is usually, ”if you didn’t know where they were located, how did you know who their neighbor was?  If you were able to find their neighbor, it seems you had previously located them just fine.”  In my opinion when debt collectors start calling third parties, there is almost always a violation of the FDCPA that has or will take place!

The statute also has clear restrictions on debt collectors contacting consumers at work.  The statute prohibits calling consumers at their place of employment when either they know, or have reason to know, that the consumer’s employer prohibits personal calls or that the consumer doesn’t want to be contacted at work.  So, if you are getting calls at your place of employment by a third party debt collector, tell them to stop calling you there.  Alternatively, if you are getting calls by third party debt collectors at your residence or on your cellular phone and are afraid they are going to start calling you at work; tell them the next time you speak to them to never call you at work.  If after telling the agency this they call you at work, they have violated the FDCPA and you have the right to sue for damages.  The prohibition against work place telephone calls is simple; if you’re getting calls at work when you’re not allowed to you will likely get fired.  If you get fired you can’t pay your debts.  As such, the statute prohibits work place telephone calls if you notify them that you are prohibited from receiving them or if you simply don’t want to be contacted at work.

The statute also prohibits debt collectors from threatening any action against you that they are not permitted to take and prohibits them from threatening anything they don’t intend to take.  So, since we’ve already established that the debt collector is prohibited from contacting your friends and family members if they know how to locate you, it would be a violation for a debt collector to threaten you that if you don’t pay your debt they will contact your father, human resource department, etc.  Since the statute prohibits them from doing so (especially since they have already “located” you since they would be threatening this while they were talking to you on the telephone) this would be a violation of the FDCPA.  Likewise, they are not allowed to threaten you with action they don’t intend to take.  An example of this is threatening to refer your debt to an attorney, sue you, seek garnishment of your wages, etc. if they don’t intend to actually do so.  It should also be noted that a debt collector that is not an attorney is never allowed to threaten to sue you since they are not permitted to practice law.  The decision to sue someone is a legal decision that can only be made by attorneys.

The statue also prohibits collection calls before 8am or after 9pm.  The statute prohibits debt collectors from calling repeatedly and it prohibits the use of profane language.  Lastly it prohibits debt collectors from engaging in any conduct the natural consequence is to harass, oppress, or abuse any person.  This is a pretty broad restriction and is the basis for a good amount of FDCPA lawsuits.

So, you’ve been victimized by the debt collectors, now what?  Now you hire an experienced FDCPA attorney and put those debt collectors in their place.  The statute provides a maximum of $1,000.00 in statutory damages, uncapped actual damages, and forces the debt collector to pay your attorney fees. 

If you think a debt collector has violated the FDCPA, call us at 866-339-1156 or log on to www.fairdebthelpers.com and let us know what happened.

Jeffrey Hyslip

In my over five years in collections industry (both representing collection agencies and representing consumers) it is my personal opinion that it is rare to find a “Bad Collection Agency”.  My firm receives thousands of calls every week and sure, there are “repeat offenders”, however, most of these agencies are not “Bad” in and of themselves.  The “repeat offenders” are usually the largest agencies, with the most employees, with the largest number of accounts.  Its no surprise that certain collection agencies are always in the news for violating the law.  If one agency has twelve employees and another has thousands, statistics would dictate that the agency with thousands of employees will get more complaints against them than the agency with twelve.

However, there are certainly bad debt collectors; individuals who are so greedy and will go to any extreme to earn their bonus checks.  Most, if not all, collection agents are paid bonuses for reaching certain goals.  This system certainly contributes to the frequency of violations, but incentivising employees is not an unusual practice.  I will, from time to time, publish information on lawsuits that I have filed.  Please keep in mind however, that just because I sue XYZ agency over and over doesn’t necessarily mean they are a “repeat offender”.  Its likely that the agency is so large that its simply due to statistical measures that they are repeatedly being sued or, to their dismay, they hired a rogue collector.

Jeffrey Hyslip