This is a term you should get to know well. Zombie debt is debt that is purchased for next to nothing because it is aged as in 10-15 years old and sometimes older than that. It is bought by collection agencies that specialize in attempting to collect on old debt. The problem with all this is that these scoundrels threaten to sue consumers if they ignore the communications or refuse to pay any money. All the time that they are perpetrating their criminal acts and violating FTC regulations and the both the FCRA and the FDCPA they know full well that consumers cannot be sued on these debts because they are years and years past the statute of limitations for litigation in all of the 50 states. The only problem here is that if you don’t let them know that you are aware of statutes they will go ahead and sue you. The bad part about it is that if you do not appear or answer the complaint the court is going to award them with a default judgment…meaning your ass is grass and they are the lawn mower. Get my drift? If you want to learn how to protect yourself go to my website. The link you should go to for the entire article is
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8733453/
The part of the article I want to share with you is excerpted from the Washington Post. I could not possibly say it better myself:
Seeking life in ‘zombie debt’
The rise of the debt-buying industry has also led to an increase in complaints about attempts to collect what plaintiff attorneys often call “zombie debt,” those unpaid bills that are so old the statute of limitations in which a creditor can sue to recover the debt has expired.
It’s not illegal to try to collect this debt — and collection industry officials say there are a lot of consumers who want to pay, even if they are no longer legally obligated to. However, federal rules make it illegal to sue or even threaten to sue to collect it.
That’s one of the chief reasons the Federal Trade Commission sued CAMCO. In its court filing, the agency, which had received more than 2,000 consumer complaints about CAMCO, called the Rockford, Ill., firm “a debt collection company gone wild.”
It alleged that CAMCO harassed thousands of consumers to pay old, unenforceable debts or even debts they didn’t owe. CAMCO sometimes tried to find people with the same name in the same geographic area and tried to collect the debt from them, the agency alleged. Even if the consumer was not the actual debtor, CAMCO threatened jail, seizure of property or garnishment of wages unless they paid, the FTC said. CAMCO collected millions every year “and perhaps as much as 80 percent of the money” came from consumers who never owed the original debt, the agency said in its complaint.
CAMCO closed last December after the FTC filed suit. Its $1.75 billion portfolio of consumer receivables was auctioned off for $6.8 million — to another debt buyer.
