The FDCPA has laid down the guidelines for fair collection practices in order to protect consumers from being harassed by mean debt collectors. A creditor has a right to collect payment from you. But, debt collectors by no means are creditors; they are third party collectors and should not be allowed to browbeat you into believing their superiority.
A jury in Texas handed down $1.5 million in punitive damages against a collection agency that was caught on tape leaving abusive and racially charged messages while attempting to collect a debt.
Consumers who are behind on payments and owe debt have rights that are protected by the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act and can get compensation for each violation of the FDCPA.
Do you want to expose debt collector harassment? Do you want to have your story told on one of the Big Television Networks?
Third-party debt collectors generated 78,000 complaints to the Federal Trade Commission in 2008, twice the number received in 2003, according to the agency’s most recent report. That same year, the agency won more than $1 million in civil damages against collection agencies.
Consumer Reporter Michelle Buckman explains how to stop debt collector harassment and even collect some money from them.
It’s a decades-old practice known in legal circles as “sewer service”. This occurs when a debt collector fails to properly serve a notice of complaint (litigation) upon the defendant (debtor) and then files a false affidavit claiming the notice has been properly served.
Voicemails from bill collectors are a reality when you have been turned over to collections. The dirty secret debt collectors don’t want you to know about is that they very often violate the law.
Four hundred million times a year, employees of a little-known company called NCO dial the telephone “just to talk.”
Minneapolis-based NAF has mediated the vast majority of these claims. But both NAF and another arbitrator have stopped hearing arbitrations of consumer-debt cases, and major banks are dropping arbitration requirements.
