“I’ll go through any lengths I have to in order to embarrass you,” says one of the many debt collector chicks who keep calling this guy up at work, trying to get him to pay for a credit card debt from 1998 that he doesn’t remember and for which they refuse to provide verification.
He continually calls their bluffs and dares them to sue him, knowing full well that they can’t, they can only keep making laughably harassing phone calls.
But as funny as this call is, you have to imagine how these unlawful debt collection tactics work on people who don’t know their rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
One thing you can do is send them a letter requiring they provide you with verification that they actually own the debt. If they don’t comply and keep contacting you about the debt, you can sue them for statutory damages in small claims court without much hassle and get up to $1000. Here’s a sample letter.
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There is only one way to deal with Zombies:
Burn them to the ground!
More like headshots, definitely headshots are the way to deal with zombies
In the brain and not the chest. Head shots are the very best.
But tough to do consistently. That’s why we have the Mozambique Drill: Center mass double-tap followed by head shot…
He was making a reference to the movie Fido.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWygYxuVAoc
Besides, why would you throw away 2 rounds on hitting a zombies chest?
To ensure that they are dead. If you shoot a zombie once, you aren’t guaranteed a kill.
DOUBLE TAP
You gotta kill the head zombie. The rest will go down easily after that.
i thought fire was one of the worst ways to deal with zombies.
“The living dead have no fear of fire. Waving an open flame in a ghoul’s face will do nothing to slow or impede its advance.”
-The Zombie Survival Guide
Depends on circumstances. If you’re on the roof of a stone/brick building, surrounded by hordes, by all means let the Molotov’s fly. The fire can’t burn the building you’re in, only the Zs.
If you’re in a wood-frame building, on the other hand….
As for the quote- true, fire will not slow an advancing horde. Until/unless it burns the flesh away from their bones. In other words, it’s no good at intimidation, but it can destroy them.
Oh, on a side note, the game Minecraft has zombies. That burn when exposed to the sun. heh heh.
What a bunch of low life scumbags.
She’s actually correct that the statute of limitations doesn’t relieve you of the obligation to pay the bill. It simply prevents you from being sued on it.
She’s still completely ignorant of call recording laws, and lots of the FDCPA.
I give him credit for talking on the phone to them, but I wouldn’t do it.
The debt is expunged after I believe 7 years, although she is right that it’s not simply the date of last payment. He probably still owes the debt, but he may also be right in that they cannot sue for it.
Not sure if “sue” also refers to obtaining a garnishment against him or not. They could do that.
The debt is never expunged. It can still be reported on your credit report, and it can still be collected upon by an agency. However, nobody can sue you for it after it becomes time-barred.
False. Debt can be expunged. It’s been reported here many time of a statute of limitations.
In fact, here are some examples of a debt collections limitations:
http://credit.about.com/od/statuteoflimitations/a/entirestatesol.htm
http://www.creditinfocenter.com/rebuild/statuteLimitations.shtml
Did you even read your links?
“==>The Statute of Limitations does not cause your debt to go away after it expires.
Trying again without the accidental HTML tags.
The Statute of Limitations does not cause your debt to go away after it expires. If the creditor files suit, the consumer has an absolute defense. The consumer must offer the new evidence to avoid a judgement. The evidence will consist of papers the consumer files to support his claim. If the creditor sues you, and you do not prove to the court that the Statute of Limitations expired, you will have a lost lawsuit and a judgment against you.
The statute of limitations is an affirmative defense. It the debtor doesn’t plead it, then it doesn’t exist for that case. However, once the debtor pleads the debt as time-barred, if the court finds that it is time-barred the case is over. No evidence of the debt even comes in. We generally pleaded it as a preliminary motion prior to filing an answer. If the court agreed with us, it saved us the trouble of doing anything. Agreed that the debt isn’t extinguished. It just can’t be the subject of a court proceeding.
Then what’s the point? Their ability to sue you expires, but not there ability to collect. So how else do they collect?
They can attempt to guilt you into it, or trick you into resetting the clock on the SoL. (Different in all states.)
Once a debt gets this far, there’s a higher likelyhood of scummy agencies willing to break the law to take advantage of people who don’t know their rights.
Their ability to sue does not expire.
If they sue you, Statute of Limitations is a defense you can raise as to why you shouldn’t pay and why judgment should be in your favor.
In some states acknowledging the debt as owed, or attempting to repay the debt, will reset the statute of limitations.
For example, the debt collector calls and says “do you owe this debt?” If you say “yes”, then you have just waived your ability to raise the SoL as a defense.
You are wrong about part of that. It generally can’t be shown on your credit report after 7 years either.
http://consumerist.com/2009/07/how-long-before-that-debt-falls-off-my-credit-report.html
In NYS, the SoL is 6 years. Therefore, there is a window of time where the debt can still be reported even though the SoL is passed.
Each state is different.
Nice try.
If it prevents them from suing then it does remove the legal obligation. And if the debit is 7+ years old and the person doesn’t remember the debt there is no moral obligation either.
No, it doesn’t.
The debt still exists, and still should be paid. They just can’t get a judgement against you to force that to happen after it becomes time barred.
It doesn’t prevent them from suing.
this bugs me about lawsuits:
people have a tendency to say that they can’t get sued for doing something.
in fact, i could sue Oprah for defamation of character (even though she has never said anything about me.) that being said, there is absolutely no chance of me winning that suit.
True, but they still have to prove the debt is legitimate in the first place, however.
They don’t necessarily have to prove anything. If they sue and you don’t show up, they win, proof or no proof (and they will not have proof).
Correction… well many corrections regarding Statute of Limitations (SOL)
SOL does NOT prevent them from suing you over the debt.
SOL does NOT prevent them from getting a judgment.
SOL does NOT expunge the debt.
SOL does NOT remove the obligation.
If you are sued, SOL is an affirmative defense you may raise as to why you should not have to pay the claimed debt.
If you do not raise the defense, the creditor may still obtain a judgment against you.
If a creditor sues you knowing it is beyond the statue of limitations they are suing you in bad faith. If the creditor sues you and actually affirms in the filing it is beyond the SOL the case will be thrown out.
Nice to see the collectors don’t even know the laws pertaining to their business.
Its not that they don’t know the laws. They’re just preying on the ignorance of the public in order to satisfy their greed. I doubt ACC paid anywhere close to $1537 for that debt. They’re really just one threat of physical violence away from being actual honest to goodness loan sharks.
They’re gambling that you aren’t aware of the laws that protect you from these sorts of shenanigans in order to get a fairly huge windfall.
Are you surprised?
Oh they know, they are just betting that you don’t. And for every $1000.00 fine they pay these shady tactics allow them to collect $10,000. It wouldn’t make fiscal sense for them to follow the law.
I went through something like this with JBC & Associates around ten years ago. It was infuriating that they would keep calling and refused to follow ANY aspect of the FDCPA. Ultimately I told them I was never going to send them any money and they could feel free to sue me if they wanted anything from me. I never heard from them again.
This is the letter you take? That lady was damn polite compared to the real scumbags that work in this industry.
If the debt is his, he should pay it. If it’s not, take it to the BBB. This is what I did when I had a collection agency try to collect a debt from me with a different SSN that took place when I was 16 years old. I filed a complaint with the BBB and haven’t heard from them since.
The only way that would work is if the company in question was not a paying member of the BBB. If they were, they could have had you killed and the BBB would have been fine with it. The ONLY thing “satisfactory” means in BBB parlance is that they have paid their BBB invoice.
Well, whatever. It was enough to scare them off, at least.
The BBB doesn’t “scare” anyone. No one goes to the BBB to find reviews before they shop with a company, and in the case of a company that comes to YOU (debt collectors), what’s the BBB complaint going to do?
If the debt is his, the company should be able to send him proof, as he requested.
So… is this a legitimate debt? I’m a little confused. The recording says that the collectee has no recollection of that account, and the collector won’t (can’t?) provide proof of the debt other than “you paid it for two years”. So as far as the account standing, who is “right” here?
Also, since statute of limitations keep the collectee from being sued for the account, are there any other methods the collector can use to get the money (other than the collectee actually paying)?
guilt is all they have to go on.
Zombie debt collectors are a resourceful lot. One of the sneakiest ways I have heard of them getting people to pay old debt is to send them a credit card offer. It is an offer for a credit card with a higher limit than the amount that the debt collector wants to collect on. Buried deep in the fine print is a clause saying that the person agrees that any outstanding debt owed to the company offering the credit card company (who is also the debt collector) will be applied to the credit card balance and will become a new debt rather than an old one. Now, the statute of limitations is reset and the person gets a maxed out credit card.
That’s….. unbelievable! Wow.
That’s damn sneaky.
Wow, that’s pretty horrible. Where did you see this?
Statute of Limitations doesn’t keep them from suing.
It is a defense as to why judgment should be in your favor if you are sued.
If they don’t have proof of the debt, then they can’t collect on it. Legally, it doesn’t exist.
Just judging from the video. It sounds like the guy DOES ow money. Just doesn’t want to pay.
Also, that lady was actually polite compared to some other calls that have been posted.
Agreed. While she hasn’t been forthcoming with the verification documents, he is the one who got rude and defensive in the first place, and he seriously sounds like he’s hiding something. I don’t usually like to blame the OP, but he’s not claiming that this debt wasn’t his to begin with, or that he paid it off and for some reason his final payment didn’t go through, or anything like that. He’s just saying, “I don’t recall,” which is highly unconvincing, IMHO.
If someone created the account without his knowledge, why isn’t he claiming identity theft?
Identity theft isn’t necessary. They havn’t even taken steps to prove he ever held the account, as opposed to the information about the account owner they have possibly being wrong. There are thousands upon thousands of stories out there from people who were harassed over debts that were not even theirs, which were attached to them by collection agencies incorrectly – Because they held the same or a similar name, a similar SSN (having the same last four is hardly going to be rare), the debtor’s old address or phone number, etc. Proving a debt is his takes a lot more than confirming his name and the last four of the SSN.
So because he does not say the debt is his, you are convinced it is? Suspicions aside, that is some funky logic.
From the video description:
“According to my records, the account was opened March 24, 1998, last payment May 10, 1999 and charged off on December 20, 1999 for $658.”
His argument is that it’s beyond the statute of limitations. But he seems to have good knowledge of the details.
No, I’m not convinced the debt is his. I’m just not convinced it *isn’t,* either.
I was thinking the same thing. It seems like the guy is doing exactly what she says he is doing, avoiding to pay a debt that is his. She does cross the line with the comments about embarrassing him and her apparent lack of knowledge regarding call recording, but she remains polite through each call. It seems more like he is trying to intimidate them by continually sending correspondence and copies of his recordings to them. It seems as if he is actually trying to bait them into a violation so he can sue for unfair collection practices.
That may be the case. But he has no reason to pay if they can’t provide verification of the debt.
My better half had a credit card that he completely forgot about. He didn’t use it very often.
I’m still trying to figure out a satisfying way to get credit agencies from calling me for debts incurred by the people who used to have the phone number ATT assigned me three years ago when I moved. Marvin and Theresa appear to have racked up a lot of debt.
Mail this CMRRR:
[CMRRR number]
[date]
Dear scumbag,
You have repeatedly contacted me by phone at [your phone number] concerning the debt of a Marvin/Teresa Lastname. I do not know this person/these people and have nothing to do with this debt.
Immediately cease and desist all contact with me concerning this matter.
Thank you,
[Your name, typed NOT signed]
When you get the green card back in the mail, if they call back you can sue them for $1000.
To get the address you can always ask them, “sigh, what is your company name and mailing address so I can send you something.” Other ways are to Google the phone number from your caller ID, sometimes the name of the company is on there, too, or the phone number they leave on your answering machine.
I tried this. First letter returned to sender addressee unknown. Second letter to another address returned to sender addressee unknown.
Luckily, I also cc’ed T-Mobile on it, as my research suggested that they were collecting on T-Mobile’s behalf. My T-Mobile account (and the phone number they were calling on) is current. When T-Mobile received my letter, they instructed the collector to stop. No calls since then.
Once a debtor has to default there is really no point in ever paying the scavengers. I don’t think they pay the OC enough to justify their existence.
If someone runs up huge debts with no intention of paying, that’s fraud and they should be prosecuted.
I am surprised that these collectors are so brazen with their violations of the FDCPA
This was already on consumerist..
It’s not just a matter of him not wanting to pay a bill. From the recording he has requested several times that the collector provide verification that they own the debt. If they can’t provide verification that they own that debt then he has no obligation to pay them and furthermore he could get a separate collection agency coming after him for the same bill.
We all know that if the agency had any legal standing, they would have sued the OP like he invited them to do. They got nothing, so they are trying to bluff and threaten him into paying.
He may not have a legal standing to pay the debt, but if it really is his debt, he certainly has a moral obligation to pay the debt.
No. If he owes the debt he has a moral obligation to pay the debt *to the owner of said debt*, not just any fly-by-night that claims they own it but cannot produce the *legally required* documents to back up said claim.
This. Well said. Let hope the “well, yooooo shud pay yer BILLZ!!!111″ crowd gets it.
I’m getting tired of this fallacious moral obligation to pay debts argument. Companies file chapter 11 and chapter 7 bankruptcy ALL THE TIME leaving millions in debt unpaid and nobody declares to the owners/operators of that company that they have a moral obligation to pay back their debts. It’s a fallacious argument. You’re arguing that if I don’t pay every cent I’ve ever borrowed ever that The Flying Spaghetti Monster will strike me down from on high and send me straight to hell when he extends his noodly appendage. The original creditor had ample time to seek their recourse UNDER THE LAW and chose instead to sell the debt off for a fraction of the amount owed to dirtbags like ACC. There is NO MORAL OBLIGATION TO REPAY! The creditor could have had the courts collect on their behalf and they chose not to because it wasn’t worth their time.
In business they call it a strategic default. Happens every day and nobody is crying “But they’re morally obligated to pay their debt.”
1. Your argument boils down to “2 wrongs make a right” or “But mo-om he did it first” both of which I would hope you have outgrown at this point in your life. (My apologies if you actually are
2. There is a world of difference between filing for bankruptcy and just deciding not to pay a debt.
Wrong. Cause otherwise it’s a double-standard. There is nothing “moral” or “immoral” about debt. Period. It’s a contractual agreement. There is ZERO morality involved.
When you sign up for a credit card, you give your word that you will pay your debts. Maybe my word means more than yours does, but when I give someone my word, I follow through. Where I’m from, getting merchandise without ever paying for it is called stealing, not “strategic default”. Maybe it’s just the Midwest in me.
Oh sweet bloody hell, there is no WORD involved. It’s a business contract. There is nothing moral about it.
Make promises to your friends and family? Ok, sure, then your “word” is involved. Open up a credit card? Sorry, no “word”. Not fulfilling your contractual agreements doesn’t make you a liar, thief, or condemn you to Hell. It just means no one is going to enter into contractual agreements with you again, as reflected in your credit score.
While I applaud your having such a high moral perpitude, please try to not apply it to things where it doesn’t belong and/or simply has no value.
Once credit card companies, banks, mortgage and auto lenders, and Wall Street bankers decide to live up to their “word” perhaps it will be time for consumers to do the same. But since pigs will fly before that ever happens I’ll sleep just fine at night knowing my word has nothing to do with deciding whether or not I’m going to pay a debt.
There is some moral obligation, maybe not to the business you entered into the contract with, but to society as a whole. I hate these people that think it’s only the business that loses out. No, the business (in this case a credit card company) will not just write off that debt, that debt will end up being shouldered in the rates of people who actually pay their bills. There is always a hidden impact, and the people who think they are just cheating businesses are really cheating their neighbors and friends and anyone else who plays by the rules.
Another one who is applying morality where it doesn’t belong. Play by the “rules”? Which rules are those? A contract has very clear stipulations, including what happens when you don’t fulfill the terms of said contract. Those are the rules. So if you decide to not pay on your contractual obligation you are simply following the “rules” for default.
Business do it all the time and have no moral ambiguity about it.
I’m betting buying a 12-pack of tube socks at Walmart hurts your fellow Americans a lot more than defaulting on your credit cards. Yet no one seems to have any morality issues with buying cheaply-made Chinese products as long as they can save a few bucks, right?
Businesses do it all the time by filing bankruptcy, not just avoiding the debt like this guy. The collection agency has the responsibility of verifying the debt is valid and they are the legal owners of the debt, which it doesn’t sound like they have done. However it seems as if this guy is trying to intimidate them by his continued correspondence with them. If you notice each of her calls is in response to correspondence he has sent them, such as letters, recordings of previous phone calls, etc. He has asked for verification, if they haven’t provided it, there is no reason to deal with them.
GM and big corporations go through bankruptcy because it lets them restructure and continue operating. Or it is a shell game allowing them to start a new company with no debt, while leaving the old company’s debtors holding the bag.
Small businesses simply walk away from debt all the time when they fail. Many a landlord has shown up to their business park to collect unpaid lease funds only to find that an entire office suite is just empty, or has (leased) furniture filling it that is unpaid for, and some other company now needs to get it back. Since a corp was the tenant, they can’t go after the individuals running the business, they just get stuck with a huge unpaid debt and some fairly extensive cleaning and reletting fees.
Then he should actually declare bankruptcy and have the debt discharged like businesses do all the time. I am with you on your double standard, but businesses that avoid paying debt by filing for bankruptcy are doing it the “right” (read legal). This guy just seems to be dragging the process out.
There are so many things wrong on both sides of this call. The collection agency should simply provide verification of the debt. If they can’t they should leave him alone. He, on the otherhand, should not be trying to intimidate them with his continued correspondence and sending copies of the recorded phone conversations. The conversations are NOT threatening, although she does cross the line what appears to be at least one time by stating she will embarrass him by sending the sheriff to serve him papers.
You used the term, “legal standing”. I don’t think the term “legal standing” means what you think it means. It actually means (in this case) that the one collecting the debt has to, under law (a) actually be the owner of the debt (either the original creditor, or (b) an assignee, who is someone who bought rights to collect the full amount of the debt (for pennies on the dollar), or (c) an agent for the OC, who gets a percentage of whatever they collect. In order to sue someone, or even to be compliant under the FDCPA, they have to validate the debt (identify you, the source of the debt, account number, balance, etc). If they decide to sue, the bar is even higher–they have to prove these things in court.
TL;DR version: having standing is the one thing that prevents me from harassing you or hauling you into court, saying “NaptownMVP owes me, Duke_Newcombe eleventy-billion dollars…well…because I say s/he does”, and prevailing. I have to prove it.
Until they provide proof he owes it, he owes nothing.
Any company can call you up saying you owe something from 15 years ago…until they show me a bill, I’m not paying jack.
Until they prove though verification that He owes THEM the debt he shouldn’t pay anything. He owes money to *someone* from the past.
It’s stupid to send $1500 to someone that can’t prove they you owe them.
If they own the debt they can prove it. If they don’t the debt can be sold and he will STILL owe $1500 and the way the law is written the company will likely be able to keep the money he sent them.
Don’t you owe me $1500? Please send it ASAP.
There is no such thing as moral obligation to pay the debt, unless the person paying it wants there to be. Regardless, if he really wants to pay the debt, he can pay it to the original creditor, not some scumbag collection agency that paid a penny on the dollar. Of course, if he were to try this, the OC would not accept his money because they do not own the debt any more (unless they are Amex). If I feel some sort of obligation to cover a debt that’s over a decade old, I won’t be paying it to somebody with whom I never had any relationship.
The video was posted in 2007
This guy is sounds like a douche bag.
I don’t know where in the last call, when he was accusing the woman of threatening him, was she threatening him at anytime.
And from what I heard, he wasn’t being harassed.
For once the collection agency wasn’t in the wrong here, expect for the part where she says she will embarrass him, but that’s the only part.
She threatened to send the Sheriff to his office and serve papers for one. She said it was going on his credit report too. If it was more than 7.5 years after he defaulted she can’t do that.
Well, they threatened to “have the sheriff serve him with papers.” They can’t do that without a lawsuit. They can’t sue him because the Statute of Limitations has expired on the debt. They know this, and to threaten to sue is illegal when you know you cannot.
But yes, he did borrow the money, and didn’t pay it back. He should try to pay if he doesn’t want to hear about the debt any more. Otherwise, it can circulate amongst collection agencies until the end of time.
Actually if he pre-emptively sued them in small claims court for FDCPA violations it’d probably scare off any of the other bottom-feeders. Like that one dude who lives in Dallas that lost his shirt in real-estate and makes his living now suing collection agencies for violating the FDCPA.
I’d call debt collector’s vultures, but that’s really a low blow to the vultures.
How do you know he borrowed the money, Sherlock?
This is from many years ago. I don’t remember which credit cards I had that long ago, and if I got the same call, I’d honestly have to do the same thing. Even if he didn’t knowingly default on anything, if he doesn’t remember the account and doesn’t have any details on it, it’s perfectly reasonable that he can’t confidently say it’s not his.
He’s asking her to clarify what exactly this is for, and to give him some proof that it’s his debt, as she’s required to do by law.
Quit playing amateur behavioral analyst. People are never as good at that as they imagine.
She threatened to have a sheriff deliver papers and to embarass him.
I said except for that part, and that was in the second call.
I’m talking about the last call, the woman didn’t threaten him like he states she did.
“I’m going to have the sheriff serve you with papers at your job”
Umm, I’m actually self employed.
What if he is a sheriff?
A gunfight to eclipse the one at the O.K. Corral.
On a side note, that was the least scary debt collector I’ve ever heard (or read, I don’t have audio at work).
Very non-threatening.
This was entertaining to listen. Where can i find more audio/video about this?
So this guy took time out to call the collection agency and to harass it’s employees? Sounds like a waste of time heh
actually no, it sounds like ACC was calling into his place of employment (the name of the company being called is redacted but the collection agency itself is not.) Most all companies monitor their inbound calls and this guy is just smart enough to capture the juicy recordings.
From 42s into the video “Hi . This is Kim from ACC. I’m returning your phone call.” There were also numerous references to correspondence sent from in the calls as well.
Wow, what a douche. Sorry, but she was trying to be nice, and he just turned it nasty and confrontational. And the editing to just highlight the “nasty bits” is not doing much to bolster his case, as well as HIM calling them or having them call back. It’s not like they were calling to harass them, he was asking for it.
You can really hear in the second and third call, there was lots of editing at the beginning.
“This call may be monitored or recorded.” – that sounds like permission to me.
It’s actually $1000 per violation…. cha ching!
I’m amused by the people who feel like he has a moral obligation to give a collection agency money. They purchased the right to collect it (probably knowing full well it was uncollectible being past the statute of limitations.), but paying the collection agency money is not going to mitigate the fact that he didn’t pay the alleged debt to the original company. They wrote it off long ago in the course of business and probably got some tax compensation for it, too. The folks demanding he pay the debt to it now are not the people to whom he owes this “moral” debt.
The moral debt cannot be paid.
Yes, and while we are talking morals, doesn’t the bible have many verses pertaining to it being a sin (aka morally wrong) to loan money and charge interest? So, who is immoral first? The person who charges interest for the loan, or the person who doesn’t pay it back?
Do you have a savings account? Because that is essentially loaning money and charging interest.
Also, I’m not sure I’m familiar with those passages. Share a citation?
Plus you have to forgive all debts every seven years.
Oh, so you have to be religious to have morals now? Lol. Not being a shitty person is such hard work…
People, STOP playing with these lowlife thugs. STOP wasting your time, and STOP whining about it. Find out who they are, call them back every 2 seconds repeatedly and TELL THEM EXACTLY what you feel about them. Find their fax number, and fax them 1000 page faxes telling them what they can do with themselves. Make their lives as miserable as they make yours. File complaints against them with the BBB, their local AG and the FTC. ALL of this can be done online for free. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN GET THEM TO STOP, THIS IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN MAKE CLEAR TO THEM EXACTLY WHAT CRAP THEY ARE, AND MAYBE the people on the other end will get it through their thick heads that they are lowlife scum and people aren’t gonna take it anymore.
Isn’t that playing with these guys?
I can’t hear a video here; I don’t have speakers, darn it.
I’m going through something similar, only they’re not calling me at work. I sent the collection agency a letter asking for a statement of the account they have for me. They’re things I do owe, but one of them is five years old (medical – I just didn’t have the money). The lady on the phone said they would send it but all that arrived was an invoice with only one of the things on it.
The letter was respectful but firm (I used a template one I found online and tweaked it a little). I nicely said I won’t give them any more payments until I’m sure they should take them. If I don’t get a statement within the time I requested, I will go to the original creditor, explain the situation to them and see if I can pay them instead, since things have improved a bit due to my cutting back and possibly getting a raise. As for the other one, it may have already been written off and I’m not sure who to talk to about that.
I know the agency got the letter because I got the Return Receipt postcard back. It’s NCO, by the way and there are a slew of complaints against them. The first person to call me was very rude, but the lady I’ve been dealing with after that is actually quite reasonable.
What a loser that guy is. They were actually pretty civil to him, in general.
Just as important as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is the statute of limitations for collecting a debt. In many states this is as little as 4-5 years, and if that much time has passed since the debt’s owner made an attempt to collect the debt, there is no legal recourse for collection.
The verification of debt is a joke anyway, at least thru the credit bureaus. I had a debt that legally was not mine, I asked them to verify it and they came back, said it was mine. I asked how they verified, they said they contacted the company and if the company writes back that it’s verified, then it’s verified. Wow, rocket science.
I had to contact the company, argue and send letters to finally get them to remove it.
Although this guy is taunting them, it’s great to show this to others. A well put cease and desist until debt is validation is done would of been just as effective, and further harassment of phone calls would be court worthy for fines for violating FDCPA correct? You CANNOT use “you paid your bill for 2 years, that’s how I verify it” as PROOF. First you need to show the lineage of debt, where it starts, where it lies now. Show how the company legally obtained this debt… the list goes on.
She might have been somewhat polite, but come on- if they can’t sue for the debt, there’s no point to argue this man that knows the debt collection laws, knows that the statute has lapsed. Only a moral argument is left.
Regardless, they buy these debts in hope that people don’t understand the laws, and will be scared enough into paying them. Once a company realized you DO know the laws, know that the statute is up- they move on to the next chump. Not do this.
I’ll go through any lengths I have to in order to embarrass you” is a pretty empty “threat” if you could even call it that. Most of us don’t need any help to embarrass ourselves – I do it all the time! Having the sherrif serve papers (even at work) is definitely not embarrassing at all – been there, done that, too.
That said, she was nicer than most collection agents. But if I were him, I wouldn’t do anything until they can provide proof that 1) he owes the debt, and 2) they have the legal authority to collect it.
You want ‘validation’ rather than verification.
Often, the debt collection companies purchase the debt without recourse, which makes it really hard for them to provide proof that (1) they own the debt and (2) that the debt is yours. I had a company calling me about a debt. I wrote them a letter asking for validation. I didn’t get a response. About four months later, I started getting calls from another collection company. I asked the guy if they’d received my letter asking for validation. The guy asks what I mean. I ask how do I know if his company was authorized to collect the debt. He says he can fax it right away. I suggest to him that maybe he can just slip it in the envelope with the proof that the debt is mine. He agrees he will.
Nothing.
Two months later, I get another letter from a still different agency….
Yeah, I get it. Some debt collectors are scum bags but so are people who run up debt then act like arrogant assholes when they’re made to pay their dues. It seems to me like the guy knows fine well what this debt is regarding and is acting like a smug idiot because he feels he doesn’t have to pay it. I’d understand if he was being harassed needlessly, but as they said, he’s had this debt for a while and has likely made no attempt to settle it. I have no sympathy whatsoever for the guy and I hope he is made to pay the debt to teach him that freeloading is just as lowly as the actions of the collections agency,
Rough. .. I have never received a collection call. When you pay your bills on time the phone doesn’t ring asking for their money back.
Good thing you’ve never been called by a shady debt collector just because you have the same last name as someone they’re looking for, or have the recycled phone number of someone they’re looking for, or live at the previous address of someone they’re looking for, or happen to be related to someone they’re looking for, or just in the same city of someone they’re looking for.
Why doesn’t he ever point out the obvious matter that even if the debt is real, that doesn’t prove that it is owed to THEM.
Haha oh please, show up at my work, I could use some company at that horror show. The frigging debt collector would probably run away screaming after dealing with 1-2 of my more obnoxious co workers. >3
Bring it, it’s ON!
No really, you have no idea how nuts it is. Srsly.
This collector was more polite than most, and the guy was kind of a douche to her, but when he asks for verification of the debt in writing, they need to provide it to him.
The major problem when you get these zombie calls is getting an address to send your letter to. They don’t give it to you!