You Receive A Letter From A Collection Agency–What Are The Proper Steps To Take?

You receive a letter from a collection agency, debt collector or law firm acting as a debt collector. The debt might be yours or it might not be. Whatever the case there are certain procedures that you should follow in order to protect yourself against being compromised legally and/or financially. People have told me that when they have received these letters they have just thrown them out or ignored them!!. Others have answered them and said whatever came to their minds such as “This debt is not mine.”, “I don’t remember this account.” etc. The proper move to make is to demand that whoever has sent you this correspondence validate the debt. Their letter to you is supposed to state that you have the right to dispute the alleged debt and have 30 days after receiving their letter to do so. Omission of this item is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

The ca (collection agency) is required to validate your account if they receive your request within the 30 day time frame in which they initially contacted you in writing. Your request must be sent to them by certified mail. Trust me they are not above lying and claiming they never received anything from you if your request is made by just first class mail. If you request a validation of the debt 30 days after you have received their correspondence they do not have furnish you with any information.

You can receive my free debt validation letter with audio instructions by emailing me at stopthecallsfast at gmail.com. If you are really smart you will consider investing in my stopthecallsfast system which teaches you how to handle most situations. You should know that just because you demand validation the ca’s who break the law with impunity don’t really care. It comes down to simple math. If they are making 00′s of thousands of dollars penalties of $1000 per violation do not really matter to them.

I have lots of acquaintances ranging from those who are very wealthy to people who are just getting by. But let me share a little secret with you; ca’s and debt collectors/debt buyers do not care who you are. You are a paycheck. You are money and if you buy their con job in the end who you are means nothing. I have seen very smart, educated people who should know better get taken right over the coals because they let themselves be intimidated.

 

 

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What Is The Correct Way To Handle Calls From Debt Collectors Whether The Debt Is Yours Or Not?

If you are called by a collection agency (debt collector, junk debt buyer) it is never a good idea to give them any information over the phone. Anything they need to convey to you should be in writing whether it is your debt or whether they are making a mistake which happens a lot. In any event they must inform you of your right to request written validation of the debt within 5 days of calling you. If this is not done they are in violation of the Fair Collection Practices Act. If you have caller id and do not recognize the number (“private name, private number or some 800# )don’t even answer the phone. The only purpose of these phone calls is to convince you to agree to make payments or to give personal information which under no circumstances should you ever do over the phone.

It is advisable to keep a written log of calls you receive if they become incessant or take on the nature of harassment, i.e/ many calls during the day, made to neighbors or relatives, to your place of work or directly to your employer. Additionally you should transpose the audio of these calls from your answering machine to a more secure or permanent location such as a computer hard drive or a flash drive. You can email me for specifics(stopthecallsfast at gmail.com). If you are receiving more than 2 phone calls a day from a debt collector and even if they are between 8:00 AM and 9:00PM the conduct of the debt collector just might be in violation of the FDCPA and if they are to your cellphone then also Telephone Consumer’s Protection Act which I will get to in a bit.

The following explanation of the relationship of the Telephone Consumer’s Protection Act to debt collector abuses is through the courtesy of PRweb:

Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) June 07, 2011

Receiving repeated invasive phone calls from a debt collector on your cell phone can be a major nuisance. But even more annoying is the cell phone collection call from an auto-dialer or robocall, featuring a pre-recorded, computer generated voice, attempting to collect a debt. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act(TCPA) was enacted primarily to protect consumers from telemarketing calls, or unwanted telephone solicitation, which led to the creation of the “Do not call” registry list. According to consumer protection law firm Weisberg & Meyers, LLC, many consumers are not aware that this same act now offers protection from predictive or auto-dialer calls to your cell phone without your consent

In the past, debt collectors would manually dial a phone number. Now, “thanks to modern technology” and increased efforts for greater time efficiency in the debt collection industry, collectors are using computers, aka “auto” or “predictive” dialers to make the calls on their behalf. Debt collection calls from an auto-dialer have a specific format and script. “Please hold for the next available representative” is usually the opening line followed by a short delay. The delay or pause, whether at the beginning of the call or after the opening line is typically the marker of an auto-dialer. A recent Federal Study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the percentage of cell phone only homes in the US has doubled over the last three years. Thus contact from debt collectors has begun to turn toward debtors cell phones rather than home phones in an effort to collect overdue bills.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act states that the requirement for debt collection calls is the same as it is for auto dialed calls from solicitors – if you did not give consent for contact via your cell phone then these calls could be a violation of the TCPA. If this occurs you could be entitled to $500 damages per call if it’s determined that the calls are a violation of the TCPA. You could potentially receive triple damages if you can prove that the phone calls were made knowingly and with intent.

According to a complaint filed in the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York (Civil Action File No.1:10-cv-00173- JBW-MDG) consumer Marco Rafala was receiving calls from a debt collector from collection agency Nelson, Watson & Associates on his cell phone, attempting to collect a debt for a female that he did not know or has never been familiar with. Since the cell phone number belonged to Mr. Rafala for 4+ years, he informed the collector calling that the party they were attempting to reach was not at this number He added that the female they were attempting to contact could not have had this number for 4 or more years. The calls allegedly continued in spite of Mr. Rafala’s documented verbal request to “stop calling me” and Mr. Rafala was allegedly informed that this number would not be removed from the auto-dialer rotation.

According to Weisberg and Meyers consumer advocate Dennis Kurz, “A seemingly endless barrage of phone calls from a debt collector to your cell phone can be annoying, but the fact that the calls to Mr. Rafala were for an alleged debt for another consumer made the situation even worse.” Kurz, who manages the New York practice for Weisberg and Meyers added, “The FDCPA and the TCPA were enacted to protect consumers from harassment and illegal procedures debt collectors may use, and if it’s determined these calls were violations, the a consumer could be entitled to compensation in addition to cessation of the calls.”

For a modest investment of less than $40.00 I teach you through my proven self help system how to deal with problems such as those discussed above and many others. Why is it proven? The answer is simple, I myself had to use it personally when my life tanked some years ago. So what you are being offered is not poppy cock or smoke and mirrors but the real thing. Please check out the tab labeled “How To Stop The Calls” at the top of this page. Thank you.

 

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The Saga Of CBCS: Credit Bureau Collection Services of Columbus Ohio

The Ohio Attorney General has finally nailed CBCS.  You can read the entire settlement agreement right here

Any intelligent person must be asking themselves how it is possible that a slime bucket company like this one has managed to stay in business for so long. The transgressions of CBCS range from violating numerous sections of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, attempting to collect debts which they cannot validate, knowingly attempting to collect on debts which they know are not those of the consumer(s) they are harassing  to continuing to try to collect on these debts even after it has been proven to them that the debts are invalid. Oh and let us throw in issuing 1099′s on debt that was never the consumer’s so they can obtain a tax write off. Oh my friends the list goes on and on.

They have a relationship with LVNV Funding which gets even better. What these junk debt buyers do is to operate under multiple names to confuse their victims. In the case of LVNV, they also call themselves: Resurgent Capital Services,Alegis Group,Sherman Financial Group,Pinnacle Financial Group,Sherman Acquisitions,FNBM, LLC, Ascent Card Services. The way the operation works is that the junk debt buyer (LVNV….or using the other names) funnels the printouts of the alleged debts to CBCS. CBCS then goes about the dirty business of terrorizing, abusing, threatening the targets to intimidate and frighten them into paying money. Guess what it works much of the time because most people do not know their rights or are too scared to do anything about their problem.

When you read the settlement agreement you will understand just how evil and nefarious CBCS has been. They have made millions of dollars illegally. I take issue with the settlement agreement because I believe they will pay the fines and go back to business as usual. The answer for these criminals is jail time and having there business closed permanently. You can learn how to defend yourselves against companies like this one and all the other ones out there across the US who operate the same way CBCS does.

 


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