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]
debt collection
New Bill Would Take Income-Based Student Loan Payments Straight From Your Paycheck
By 12.4.12 — Updated: 12.5.12
Comcast Doesn’t Understand That 42-42=0, Sends Me To Collections
By 11.1.12
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 10.18.12
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 10.12.12
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 8.24.12
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 8.15.12
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 7.31.12
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 5.2.12
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 4.25.12
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 4.11.12
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 2.23.12
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 2.21.12
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 2.7.12
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 2.1.12
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]
Debt Collectors Resurrect Old Debt By Issuing New Credit Cards
By 1.3.12
People with credit scores that prevent anyone but their mom from lending them money are suddenly receiving offers that allow them to have a credit card — on the condition that they pay back part of an old debt that they are no longer legally obligated to pay. [More]
What To Do And What Not To Do When Debt Collectors Come Calling
By 9.23.11
No one likes to be contacted by a debt collector. Those who do the job know this better than anyone, and come prepared to get you to acknowledge them whether you’d like to or not. Some in the profession have a reputation for crossing legal and moral lines when attempting to shake you down, so it’s best to know how to operate if you come in contact with a collector. [More]
Kaplan University Demands $3,310.56 After Graduation, Can't Explain What For
By 8.25.11
Melinda has an MBA from Kaplan University, and has enough business sense to know that she shouldn’t have to pay debts that aren’t hers in the first place. The for-profit college, part of the Washington Post Company, has decided that she owes them more than $3,000 even though her tuition was long ago paid with federal financial aid. No one can show her a detailed breakdown of the bill, or explain why no one noticed that she owed the money until months after graduation. Update: Kaplan has since resolved Melinda’s problem. [More]
Report: Hundreds Of Thousands Told They Owe Defunct Hollywood Video
By 2.4.11
It turns out the reader who received a mysterious notice saying he owed a bunch of money to deceased Hollywood Video is far from alone. [More]
