Harassment
Complaint
Debra M. Persiano
Country: United States
I got a call today at home from a man stating he was a process server for Collin County DA's Office and he is with the Sheriff's office and needed to come serve a warrant on me. I was shocked and asked why? He stated do you live ....are you still at this address are you now at this address and I stated who are you? He again, stated he was from the county going to serve court papers on me today. He gave me a toll free number for what he stated was the county's office which is 1 866.872.6116 gave me a case no. which he called a Cause No. 008307-TX. I called the number was transferred to a Mr. Fisher's office who stated that law suite in the amount of $6,214.24 was filed in Collin Co., Tx and that warrant was out for me. He then after back and forth said let me get more information from my secretary and state this was for an outstanding debt in from Capital One a credit card that I obtained several years back and had disputes over interest charges etc. He stated that if I did not want to go to court or jail that I could pay $1,951.00 in full by end of business today and this matter could be cleared up. I explained that I recently lost my job etc. Anyway, he stated that I needed to call him back by EOB today or they will serve the papers. Ok, so that was a heads up for me. I called the DA's office nothing is filed on me as of today, after searching PMG it is clear that they do not practice best practices for collections and have been in trouble for this before back in 2004. I need someone to give me advise. I want to pay off my debt, I don't want this type of collections to continue this upset me, made my blood pressure raise, this type of collections are not the right thing to do. Had they called and ask to make arrangements or give me an opportunity to clear the matter, rather then threaten me by taken legal action, or harassment stating they are sending a sheriff over today. This is wrong, bad business, and should not continue this company is bad news.
Comments
If third party collection were outlawed, none of this would matter. Debts would go no further than the original creditor for management and all of the opportunities for these criminals to get in on the 'action' would be nonexistent. One change in how debt collection is carried out - the elimination of third party collections - and the entire industry could be cleaned up.
All the collection agencies in the world couldn't stop the banks from collapsing when they gave mortgage loans on terms that borrowers couldn't actually afford to pay back, based on the assumption that "home values will always go up". The lending frenzy was actually fueled by interest rates that did skyrocket unsustainably, in the form of ARMs designed to "reset" to unaffordable rates, but supposedly backed by this ever increasing home equity.
OOS debt collection has a marginal impact on lending. One proof is the bursting of the housing bubble.
Even "payday lending", supposedly some lender of last resort for the masses, ends up as just cover for shakedown calls to non-borrowers.
With the collection industry awash in this old junk, what do they use it for? Not to "collect what is owed", but as cover to run shakedown rackets. It's actually worth more to these shakedown rackets than to legitimate debt collectors, so that's where it ends up. It feeds illegal collection and extortion.
Even though it was blatantly illegal, clearly violating FDCPA, they deliberately wrote their scripts so they could "collect debt" from not just "debtors", but even relatives, and even when they called the wrong person.
The scripts handle cases like "included in bankruptcy", "already paid", "fraudulent account", "reaching an ex-spouse", "the debtor is in prison", or even "the debtor is homeless", all still keeping the "debt" in play. Only reason to do that is to intimidate and get money from the person actually reached, whether it's owed or not, and whether they owe it or not. Consumer asks for information, and the scripted response is "it could be from a bank, maybe Wells Fargo", or "I don't have that information", then they are phishing for the consumer to fill in the details, just like the Indian scams.
There is no great economic loss if OOS debt collection stops. The lender exptected and anticipated losses based on their targeted borrowers, built those losses into their loan structure in the form of higher rates, wrote off the losses years ago, and the little they got for selling of their junk hardly compares to the mischief they created by feeding the growth of this "debt collection" extortion industry.
This isn't "debt collection", it's fraud and extortion hiding behind "debt" as a cheap prop, and if our banks' solvency is based on this, we are in a sorry state.
They have presented a cost/benefit argument, about how valuable they are to the economy, and therefore that we should tolerate their excesses, due to this "benefit".
The harassment and fraud losses created by the shakedown rackets ARE part of the collection industry costs, and "benefit" in terms of supposedly "lower interest rates" is probably nonexistent.
This is a public policy issue, just like other industries. The meat packing industry delivers valuable hot dogs, or whatever, from which we all benefit, but long ago we prohibited them from dumping their waste in the Chicago River to the point where it caught fire.
The irresponsibility (and actual criminal behavior) of some parts of the debt brokering and collections industry are damaging us all. They continue to do so, because they have been able to evade being held accountable. This gives the worst of the bad actors an advantage, not only against their victims, but against their legally compliant competitors. It leads to a cascade of effects, similar to Gresham's Law, or the S&L collapse of the late 1980s, where the advantage of "risk taking" (illegal collection) actually draws more economic activity to take this form. The playing field is not level, and it tilts toward the liars and cheaters.
At the margins, it impacts the phone system with fraudulent calls, it wastes the productive capacity of our businesses due to harassment for bogus collection from employees, it undermines the financial integrity of citizens through fraud losses, it undermines the integrity of the credit reporting system with bogus "bad debts", and it costs our social safetynets and the finances of relatives as they make up for those fraud losses.
And all this, even though it is on its face, illegal, and supposedly FDCPA and FTC could control it, because these "businesses" are deliberately set up to avoid accountability, they seldom pay for the costs they impose on others.
We allow industries that might create "pollution" to operate, but we license and regulate them, requiring that they control and manage their "waste" to minimize the impact on the rest of us, and we require that they carry the costs of that management. Debt collectors create "pollution", in terms of erroneous collection, erroneous credit reporting, and erroneously filed court cases, in addition to fraud losses. It is appropriate to assess the industry the costs of managing its own "pollution", just as we assess other industries.
You can't enforce legally compliant collection without accountability, and you can't have accountability with fly-by-nite operators. Debt collection should require national licensing (and bonding), to allow debt collectors to be held to account. Unlicensed and unbonded debt collectors should be subject to criminal prosecution.
They get caught occasionally, it's just a cost of business.
They are all too comfortable just sending out letters to anyone they can find by cheap name matching, with no check that there is any connection to the "debtor", then when consumers call back, using talk-offs to still try to collect even when they know how flimsy their claim is, deceptively implying the "debt" must be paid unless the consumer can "prove" they don't owe it, even when their cover story is that "it must be id theft"..
That's a shakedown, even when they don't pretend there's a lawsuit.
These are even ACA members, not bottom feeders, and they still do it.
You can track it across consumer complaints, same talk-offs, going back years.
Then you have the FTC and AG settlements, for "failure to validate", "reaging", "abusive collection" etc.: NCO, Arrow, Allied Interstate, all hardly small collection agencies, and not part of what you could dismiss as "less than 5%".
So much for the 5% theory.
Lack of accountability rewards noncompliance and shakedowns.
People and companies respond to their incentives accordingly.
They do what pays, legal or not, integrity be damned.
No great loss if it stops.
They would collect payment! They would work the accounts to collect payment just like dcs do, only there'd be no 'shady middle men' involved. Duh...
The only thing that third party collections provides is an avenue of revenue for criminals.
The original creditor could never get away with the shady escapades of debt collectors. It would taint their brand, and attract class action lawsuits.
The flip side is, what the collection industry is getting paid for is illegal collection, while adding the uncertainty and ambiguity to get away with it. As they compete, their competitive edge is in how far they can push illegal collection, and in what they do to evade accountability.
Despite all the denials, it's perverse.
They tolerate damage to the accuracy and integrity of their "product", these supposedly valuable credit files. Even as they claim they are in compliance with FCRA, maintaining highest "accuracy", fixing errors is just a cost center, while selling credit reports to consumers trying to remove bogus information is a profit center.
Their shadiest clients can game the system, with no accountability, and they profit as consumers pay them trying to fix the "mistakes".
Are there still dcs out there that believe that they can draw blood from a stone?
Next...
As long as there are people with money, and you can create an excuse for demanding it, you can get money from them.
For fixing mistakes on credit reports.
For paying for someone else's debt.
For paying for telecom "billing errors" that go away, and then return years later.
For paying for made up debt.
Much higher profit margin than a real business, since your "cost of goods" is trivial.
Maybe you even "sell" it to several different people. Who would know?
And what's your competition?
Your "customers" aren't choosing your "product" over your competitor's "product".
You choose them.
All it takes is a cover story, and you can demanding money from anyone.
Once you realize that, you might as well spend your time demanding it from people who have it, cause that's where the money is.
That means your first calls are NOT to the alleged debtor.
Better to shake down the whole family, or even some random unrelated people.
The odds are actually better.
wow
justice ????
Justice isn't free.
You get what you pay for.
If most of the income is ill-gotten, by the time they get caught it's long gone and spent, so the victims never get anything near equitable compensation.
Sitll worth shutting them down, since the alternative is consumer losses continue and even keep growing.
I've read some of the hoops the receiver has had to jump through (cleaning out offices, selling computers on ebay, etc.) and I can only imagine how time consuming all that work is....I'm sure he deserves the compensation.
Timing suggests they are related. No details.
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-916-910-0768
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-320-229-8055
Google thinks BBB is reporting the number, 320-229-8055, in connection with a debt collecotr, Jefferson Capital, in St. Cloud, MN. Can't find the number on the currently visible BBB report.
Different area codes suggest VoIP for the 916 number.
What do they say?