A new twist on debt collection

[Racket_Man]

here is the article

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/0...o-those-who%2F

basic situation is as follows: a collection company "attempts" (valid or not) to collect a debt (may be yours may not be or it may even have been paid off already). the company "attempts" to collect debt by suing you (not sure if in small claims or full court) where in you may or may not get the court hearing notice.

since you may not have gotten the hearing notice, the court may or may not schedule another hearing date and you may or may not get notice of the new hearing date. if you do not get legal notice and NOT show up the court summarily finds for the collection company and they in turn get a warrant for your arrest. when you get arrested the "bond out" amount is the amount of the judgement and that "bond money" gets passed on to the collection company

even if the debt is NOT yours or it it has been paid off already you are still in "danger" of being arrested.

[telecom_goddess]

wtf??????? Seriously?

That is utter bullshit.

[ExRetailDrone]

That's... truly fucked up.

[Exaspera]

What's to stop these debt collectors from making stuff up?

[Racket_Man]

What's to stop these debt collectors from making stuff up?

read the article. they have tried to collect a "debt" from someone who:
a. is not related to the debtor
b. has the same common last name as the debtor
c. paid off the debt literally years and years ago
d. is related to the debtor but has no "interest in" or knowledge of the debt ie not a co-signer or guarrentor
e. does not even owe a debt.

some collection agencys are doing this to my GF (not trying to sue her or anything but the phone calls are numerious) apparently her sister gave GF's phone number as a contact (not authorized to do so) so they call GF's number about sister even though we do NOT have any info on sister (and we have told them this but they persist.)

another one is a possible relative with the same initials and last name. GF number is listed in the phone book as A. Smith where A is a purely female name and the debtor is Andy Smith. so we figure they just did a lookup on EVERY A* Smith (* = wild card character that incluces just the initial A) in the state and auto-called them leaving a message for Andy Smith for some student loan debt. GF had TWO seperate entities doing this at the same time.

[draggar]

This isn't just for debt collectors.

Last year my wife and I filed for bankruptcy and had all debts discharged (except mortgage / car loans etc..). During the 3 month proceedings, my car was paid off - and I confirmed this with the car loan bank.

Months after the discharge we start to get notices of protest on the bankruptcy claiming one creditor was never notified. Who was it? My initial car loan bank (not the last one). Not only had the loan been paid off but they sold it to another company.

I owed them no money and they didn't even appear on our credit report but they insisted we still owed them money (even though they wouldn't give any account information or amount information) and was threatening to have our bankruptcy overturned because of it.

Luckily we have a good attorney for this and he set them straight.

We also had another bank ignore the bankruptcy ruling and sold the account to a debt collection agency who doesn't care about the bankruptcy (a little loophole here - since the account was being transferred during the ruling, the collection agency considered it' "new debt" and not covered under the bankruptcy - our attorney disagrees).

[crashhelmet]

I ran into this years ago with a credit card. I lost the card, reported it lost, and had a new card sent to me. Through some financial brain fart at the bank, I then had 2 accounts with an equal outstanding balance. I didn't pay anything on the second account while I continued to fight them on it all. A few years later, I get a certified letter from the courthouse saying the bank had been awarded the victory because I failed to show up in court.

My lawyer requested proof that I was aware of the case, which they couldn't provide, and we got a new trial. I counter-sued for legal fees and for the remaining balance I had on my card to be wiped off.

Meanwhile, I get the occasional letter from some collections lawyer trying to collect on that debt. How they got it, I don't know because it's not on my credit report. instead, i'll let them continue to waste their money trying to collect money they have no right to.

CH

[Mr. Anubite]

some collection agencys are doing this to my GF (not trying to sue her or anything but the phone calls are numerious) apparently her sister gave GF's phone number as a contact (not authorized to do so) so they call GF's number about sister even though we do NOT have any info on sister (and we have told them this but they persist.)

I recently switched cell phone carriers, but on my old phone number I would get collection calls like five times a week. Each time the agency called, I explained that they had the wrong number, but they would always ask "Are you sure you aren't Mark S.?" Ugh.

The problem is that their number came up as Restricted on my caller I.D., but a lot of my family member's numbers do the same, so I couldn't just ignore the call.

[KnitShoni]

read the article. they have tried to collect a "debt" from someone who:
a. is not related to the debtor
b. has the same common last name as the debtor
c. paid off the debt literally years and years ago
d. is related to the debtor but has no "interest in" or knowledge of the debt ie not a co-signer or guarrentor
e. does not even owe a debt.

some collection agencys are doing this to my GF (not trying to sue her or anything but the phone calls are numerious) apparently her sister gave GF's phone number as a contact (not authorized to do so) so they call GF's number about sister even though we do NOT have any info on sister (and we have told them this but they persist.)

another one is a possible relative with the same initials and last name. GF number is listed in the phone book as A. Smith where A is a purely female name and the debtor is Andy Smith. so we figure they just did a lookup on EVERY A* Smith (* = wild card character that incluces just the initial A) in the state and auto-called them leaving a message for Andy Smith for some student loan debt. GF had TWO seperate entities doing this at the same time.

My husband has a friend with the same first and last name as his. To this day, my husband's ex-wife's bill collectors are calling his friend looking for her.

[Racket_Man]

here is another small article of spilled stuff they admit to doing and getting away with.

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/0...mit/2#comments

[Boozy]

We also had another bank ignore the bankruptcy ruling and sold the account to a debt collection agency who doesn't care about the bankruptcy (a little loophole here - since the account was being transferred during the ruling, the collection agency considered it' "new debt" and not covered under the bankruptcy - our attorney disagrees).

Anything sent to a collection agency is already considered a written-off debt. The collection agencies can do nothing worse to your credit than what is already done. Tell them you have no intention of paying, ever.

[protege]

here is another small article of spilled stuff they admit to doing and getting away with.

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/0...mit/2#comments

I liked the comments in there...that the banks and other firms were solely responsible for the credit mess. Trust me, they weren't. I'm sure there was *some* greed, but let's look at how that mess got started to begin with. Some of it...was because of certain idiots in our government (including one Hillary Clinton), who decided that credit should be available to everyone. She, and her cronies drafted regulations basically forcing banks and other institutions to extend offers...even if the customers had no way to pay them back. Good intention, since it was perceived to boost home ownership for low-income families...but bad result.

With that said, up until last year...I was getting calls from collection agencies. They were looking for the person who had my home phone number previously. I'm sure they thought I was lying when I said that I wasn't that person, but tough shit. There's no reason to be rude about it!

[insertNameHere]

My sister worked for chase and called people who had credit cards and were in danger of being sold off to convince them to pay. Some people are just dead beats and can't understand that yes you should in fact pay for the money you used and actually saw a board on CS about a woman who thought her card would just be reset monthly and she never had to pay.

However, the banks charging %30 interest is absolutely ridiculous when you miss a payment and if you read the agreement carefully for like my citi card if I default on ANY card with them, they can raise my rates on ALL cards I carry with them regardless of if I paid that one on time.

So while I have established there are alot of dead beats some people have just had a hard time, my one friend is loaded with credit card debit that he can barely afford because his car broke down and he had to use his card to pay for the repairs so he was able to get his car back and make it to work and school.

Even with all the people who try and abuse the system and have no intention of paying for what they bought, the fees charges are ridiculous and the tactics by the 3rd party collectors are even worse. Throwing people in court especially without them knowing to collect on debt that may or may not be theirs is horrible. I had a neighbor who almost couldn't by a truck because of $200,000 in medical debt on his credit report that was from someone with the same name, but it is hard to confuse a 6'5" white guy with a a 5'8" black male but he been stopped by the police over the same guy and had to wait for them to figure out he wasn't the same Mr. X with a warrant.

[HYHYBT]

I get the impression that when they raise your rate to 30% they no longer *want* you to pay it back. They've decided you cannot, and want to get as much as possible out of you before you go bankrupt. Which of course is often a self-fulfilling assumption!

[smileyeagle1021]

My fiance has been dealing with debt collectors, so far he has been lucky that they have been polite... I think it's mainly because he has verifiable proof that he was laid off (didn't quality for unemployment, not entirely sure why... beurocratic bullshit) and that he has been actively looking for work for nearly a year now. Every week is pretty much the same thing "yup, still looking for work, would you like to have the emails I'm receiving saying that I wasn't selected forwarded? Yes, you'll be the first to know when I get a job and can start paying again"

I take that back, there is this one who keeps contacting his sister even though she was never a cosigner... but they have backed off recently (perhaps dealing with a PMSing bitch put them back in their place )