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Collections Law/re: collection harrasment

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Expert: Creditwrench - 11/19/2008


Question
I've been contacted by a company that says they are the crime bureau and represent a payday loan company from which I supposedly took a loan in 2006 and stopped paying on it. They tell me I can be arrested and I've committed a crime. They won't send me any information so I can verify what they are telling me or give me the name or number of the loan company. Can I be arrested?

Answer

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No, you can't be arrested. But what are you going to do about them breaking the law by telling you that, call the FTC? Don't bother. They aren't there to help you. Their job is to collect up all the complaints and when a few complaints turn into thousands they might sue the debt collector and make them pay a small fine and maybe they will do nothing at all. Lots of good that's going to do you.

File a complaint with the Attorney General? That might get a little more result but it still won't keep them off your back. It sure won't make them go away. Might even make them decide to sue you a little quicker than they might otherwise do just to teach you a lesson. I'm not telling you that you shouldn't file a complaint with the AG because I think that it is one of the better things for you to do.

I'm also not telling you not to file with the FTC because just like filing a complaint with the AG, you should do whatever you can to put those cockroaches out of business. Its really your civic duty to report those who abuse you to the authorities whether it does you any good or not. And who knows, it just might do some good.

But the bottom line is that if you pay it hurts your credit scores, takes hard earned money out of your pocket and teaches the debt collectors that those kinds of tactics work. It teaches them that breaking the law is the way to make money. In these hard economic times debt collectors are resorting to abusive practices more and more. More horror stories are coming out every day and both the economy and their abusive tactics are going to get a lot worse as time goes on. Soon there will be so many people complaining that the authorities will be snowed under with complaints and will be able to do nothing but slap the wrists of the very worst offenders.

To put an end to the problem it is going to take a large number of people willing to take them to federal court and making them pay for their sins. If enough people do that they will stop. The law makes it possible for people to take them to court and end up getting relief and get paid for doing it. They don't even need a lawyer and get it done without ever having to actually go to court or see a judge.  

Creditwrench

Expertise

Debt Collections law, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), federal law, how to properly answer court summons for collection cases, how to prepare federal cases against debt collectors, how to deal with debt collection phone calls.

Experience

I've been an active consumer advocate for more than 40 years and have helped hundreds of people win cases against debt collectors as well as helping them defeat demands for summary judgment lodged against them by banks, debt collectors and defeat mortgage foreclosures and keep their homes.

Education/Credentials
Paralegal courses for the most part.
I have been teaching people how to deal with judgments, mortgage foreclosures and other such problems both on and off the internet for many, many years. I am a Richard Cornforth information provider ever since 2000 and worked with many other organizations and causes since 1980. I was Oklahoma State Chairman for the nationwide drive to defeat the Constitutional Convention which was proposed by various factions within our federal government such as the Council of State Governments and the National Organization of State Governors who were working hard to organize a Constitutional Convention to be held in 1995 for the purpose of rewriting our American Constitution to be more acceptable to the United Nations. I worked with Senator Charles Duke of Colorado and Senator Don Rogers of California and many others across the nation to keep them from getting the number of delegate states required to lawfully hold a Con-Con and we were successful. I have worked with many other legislative issues in Oklahoma and have always been very successful.

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