The Federal Trade Commission Thursday announced a settlement in a long-running case against two debt collection agency owners and their network of companies that threatened lawsuit and arrest over debts consumers often did not owe. The two principal owners of Rincon Debt Management, Jason R. Begley and Wayne W. Lunsford, will surrender more than $3.3…
One of the nation’s largest debt collectors, Allied Interstate, was charged by the Federal Trade Commission for making repeated collection calls to collect from the wrong person, to collect the wrong amount or both. Allied has agreed to pay $1.75 million in the settlement, which is the second largest civil penalty obtained by the FTC…
“…the FTC received more complaints about the debt collection industry than any other industry. In 2009, the FTC received 119,364 complaints about first- and third-party debt collectors, up from 104,766 in 2008—an increase of nearly 15,000 complaints.”
a New Mexico lawyer who represents consumers in debt collection cases, criticizes the automated suits as “the factory approach to practicing law.”
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.
