In past blogs I have written extensively about the do's and don'ts of dealing with debt collectors. In my experience most debt collectors are not much better than what the septic man extricates from your septic tank periodically. My StoptheCallsFast.Com system was developed because my own financial issues some years ago. It is true in my case that necessity was the mother of invention. The first cardinal rule I learned was that you never talk to debt collectors about anything on the phone and that is how my letter #1 in my 6 letter system was developed. It's really common sense. You just don't have conversations with these morons. I am sure some of you watched the NBC Dateline expose of what debt collectors try to do to people who have their guard down.
I have the privilege of knowing an attorney in the Hartford, CT area whose name is Sarah Poriss. Sarah was referred to me by a legal colleague of hers who I also admire. Sarah is a true consumer advocate and has devoted her legal practice to defending consumers against legal actions brought by credit card companies and debt collectors. As Sarah states on her website: "Since very few consumers understand the process of being sued on a debt, they are overwhelmed and feel outnumbered. However, once a client hires me, I even the odds by making the other side follow the rules, and getting their cases dismissed when they fail to."
Below you can read Sarah's summary of a case she just concluded and won. I could have helped Sarah's client before she divulged too much to the debt predator over the phone. After the client did that she definitely needed an attorney and a good one like Sarah is.
"Debt collector contacts consumer at work. Consumer tells collector she cannot take personal calls at work. Collector then threatens to have papers served on her at work and states he will contact her human resources department and have her pay attached.
Out of fear that this will happen, she agrees to make two large lump sum payments to settle the debt. She of course did not have the money, was planning on borrowing from her 401(k), which she did not have to do and should never do. About two weeks later, at least one week before the collector was going to debit the first payment from her checking account, she calls the collector to inform them that she will not be making the payments and instructs the collector not to try to take the money from her account. Nevertheless, the collector attempted to take the funds on the previously agreed upon date.
When the collector did not get the money, he started calling at least four other people at the consumer's workplace. When she told him he can't call other people, he said he could so long as he didn't tell them about the debt. This is of course false; collectors may make one call only to third parties but only to ascertain location information on the consumer. At this point, the collector also threatened to have her "served" by the local sheriff, stating that she had "bounced a check across state lines" when the money wasn't in her account.
The collector had no intention of serving the consumer with anything, because it did not have the current right to bring suit against her. The statement that she had bounced a check was an implication that she had committed a crime, which is unlawful. The collector also could not legally have her human resources attach her pay as there was no right to take her pay. I believe the calls to the other employees were to scare my client into paying-if she had to pay to get the calls to stop and preserve her job, she probably would have been driven to that point.
I brought suit and the collector quickly contacted me, informed me that the individual collectors who had perpetrated these threats and false statements had been fired, and offered to settle for a fairly generous sum for this kind of case."
