Consumerist reader Dave says he hasn’t rented anything from U-Haul in around two years, so he was surprised this morning to receive a text from the company. Even more alarming: The message said he owed U-Haul money for a speeding ticket from three years ago. [More]
U-Haul Charges Me For 3-Year-Old Speeding Ticket, Won’t Give Me Any Details
By February 8, 2013
5 Examples Why Just About Everyone Hates Debt Collectors
By February 6, 2013
People go into debt. The businesses that own that debt want their money. This is why the world needs debt collectors. But what the world doesn’t need are debt collectors who harass, lie, and threaten to take debtors’ children and pets away. [More]
Regulators Looking To Rein In Debt Collectors Who Use Facebook To Contact Consumers
By January 24, 2013
Even though there’s a lengthy “no-no” list of things debt collectors can’t do, it makes no mention of how collections agencies can use social media. But that may be about to change as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau gains oversight control over the largest members of the collections industry. [More]
23 Things Debt Collectors Are Not Allowed To Do
By January 21, 2013
Though it sometimes seems like debt collectors will try anything, even impersonating Ed McMahon, to their money, the law actually puts some pretty strict limits on what these people and companies can and can’t do. [More]
New Bill Would Take Income-Based Student Loan Payments Straight From Your Paycheck
By December 4, 2012
Student Loan debt in the U.S. recently crossed the $1 trillion mark, with a good chunk of that owed to the U.S. government. In an attempt to streamline the whole process, a soon-to-be-introduced bill would replace the current system of debt collection with automatic payroll deductions tied to the borrower’s income. [More]
Comcast Doesn’t Understand That 42-42=0, Sends Me To Collections
By November 1, 2012
For a few months in mid-2011, Consumerist reader Claudia lived in two different apartments while waiting to close escrow on her new home. At both apartments, she’d had cable from Comcast, and when she closed out her account she was told she had a zero balance. Then yesterday, Claudia gets a call from a collections agency. [More]
How Does Alarm Company Send Former Customer To Collections 4 Times For A Bill She Never Owed?
By October 18, 2012
It’s bad enough when a company does such a bad job of keeping its books that it sends a customer to collections once for a bill she never owed. But it takes a special kind of stupid to pass that debt around like a hot potato until that customer has to prove her case four separate times. [More]
Disabled Vet Says Debt Collector Told Him “You Should Have Died”
By October 12, 2012
An Army veteran who was left disabled after suffering spinal and head injuries in the line of duty claims that not only did a did a debt collector attempt to illegally garnish his disability payments, but that an employee of the collection agency told him he “should have died” after a judge sided with the vet. [More]
Whataburger Suing Debt Collection Company That Won't Stop Calling Its Employee At Work
By August 24, 2012
If debt collectors at NCO Financial Systems thought they could get away with annoying Whataburger Restaurants while trying to get one of its employees to pay up on an alleged debt owned, well, they’ve got another think coming. The burger chain is taking the side of its employee and is suing NCO over what it’s calling “harassment.” [More]
Is It Okay For Store Owners To Call Out Bad Customers By Listing Names On Public Wall Of Shame?
By August 15, 2012
It isn’t just businesses that often need a dose of public shame to stop acting awful — sometimes customers are taken to task when they’re behaving badly, as one video store owner in North Carolina has been doing. She estimates that she’s lost about $26,000 in unpaid late fees and videos that never returned in the last three years and is taking to social media and a Wall of Shame in her store to fight back. [More]
Medical Debt Collector Banned In Minnesota For Harassing Patients In Emergency Rooms
By July 31, 2012
One of the nation’s largest medical debt collectors just got a bit smaller after it agreed to stop operating in Minnesota over allegations that the company staffed hospital emergency rooms with its agents in order to get people to pay up on any owed debts before they received additional care. [More]
The Fax Of Shame: How It Really Feels To Lose Your Home
By May 2, 2012
C. and her husband are a young couple who moved into their first house just a few years ago. Unable to manage their mortgage payments, they asked their lender, PNC Mortgage, for help. The bank offered them a monthly payment $500 higher than the mortgage they couldn’t pay in the first place. Their house has sat empty and on the real estate market since January, waiting for a buyer to come along for a short sale. One did, and the nightmare is almost over. Or it would be, if PNC would just stop calling the couple and any relative whose phone number they can find, almost every day. [More]
Woman Wins $10 Million Judgement Against Collections Agency, Has Trouble Collecting
By April 25, 2012
Last year, a woman in West Virginia won a $10 million lawsuit against a collections agency she’d accused of using deception and threats in an attempt to collect a non-existent debt. But considering that no one from the agency even showed up at the trial, it seems unlikely that she’ll ever see a nickel. [More]
Feds Bust Scammers Who Collected $5.2 Million By Pretending To Be Cops
By April 11, 2012
As you probably know, it’s illegal for a debt collector to threaten arrest over a debt. It’s also a big no-no to try collecting on a debt that doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop a California man from operating a scheme where callers allegedly posed as law enforcement officers to collect on bogus debts. [More]
Terminix Tells Me I Have No Balance, Sends Me To Collections Anyway
By February 23, 2012
If there’s one thing you’d think the bug-killing folks at Terminix would be good at it would be putting an end to pests that keep returning no matter what you do to make them go away. But apparently their expertise in this regard does not extend to the company’s own billing practices. [More]
Court Halts Intimidating Debt Collector Calls From People Posing As Cops
By February 21, 2012
The Federal Trade Commission announced today that a U.S. district court has stopped an operation that allegedly collected millions of dollars in payday loan debts that consumers did not actually owe. [More]
Woman Sues Wells Fargo For Telling Police She Was Contemplating Suicide
By February 7, 2012
An elderly Oregon woman has filed a lawsuit against Wells Fargo, alleging that a bank employee harassed her by telling the police she was threatening suicide — and running up a $1,055 hospital bill in the process. [More]
Hollywood Video Continues To Try Collecting Debts From Beyond The Grave
By February 1, 2012
It’s been almost two years since Hollywood Video rented its last DVD and 364 days since we reported on former Hollywood customers receiving debt collection notices for debts they didn’t actually owe. And yet collectors for the dead-and-gone chain continues to haunt customers with wildly incorrect notices. [More]
