(Newswire.net — April 9, 2013) Detroit, MI — The numbers are staggering. Americans are in debt and under siege by aggressive and sometimes underhanded debt collectors:
– 30 million people in the United States are being pursued by collectors, with an average unpaid debt of $1,400, according to figures from the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
– The industry estimates that it has more than 1 billion contacts with consumers annually (U.S. Government Accountability Office).
– In 2010, businesses nationwide placed $150 billion worth of debt with collection agencies. Agencies were able to collect about $40 billion of that total.
– There are 4,100 debt collection agencies in the United States, employing nearly 450,000 people, and the industry expects to grow by as much as 26 percent over the next three years.
Source: Harry Strausser III, president of the Mid-Atlantic Collectors Association, 9/21/2011, in The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/21/debt-collectors-bad-economy_n_973987.html
– In a survey by Scripps Research Center at Ohio University, nearly half of the respondents reported that they had received a telephone call from a collector. Two in five said they had been asked to pay an incorrect amount, and one in three reported receiving multiple calls that seemed to constitute harassment. www.newspolls.org/surveys/SHOH42.
Despite legislation which prohibits deceptive collection methods, experts believe many of these laws are simply ignored by debt collectors: “I see it almost every day”, said Southfield, Michigan consumer protection attorney Adam Alexander. “It’s just the cost of doing business. Being nasty pays off. If the debt collector gets sued once in a while, they pay the damages and move on.”
Mr. Alexander has been representing consumers for 17 years in Michigan and he has noticed an increase in debt collector harassment and lawsuits. “The numbers don’t lie. “The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), received more than 180,000 complaints of abusive debt collection practices last year” remarked Mr. Alexander. “And that’s just the people who took the time to complain.”
One particular violation which is often ignored is the “mini-miranda” notification which debt collectors are required to utter on every phone call or voice mail. In the hallmark case of FOTI v. NCO FINANCIAL SYSTEMS, INC., in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the court determined that a debt collector may be in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), by leaving a message on your voice mail that doesn’t identify them as a debt collector. For example, the debt collector must say something like: “this call is from a debt collector”, or “this is an attempt to collect a debt”.
Mr. Alexander finds that this rule is routinely violated: “I advise my clients to simply save their voice mails. Of the hundreds of recordings I have heard over the years, the failure to simply say “this call is from a debt collector” stands out as the most common violation”.
Under the FDCPA, consumers are entitled to statutory damages up to $1,000.00, actual damages and attorney fees and costs. Other violations which Mr. Alexander sees most are calls to the consumers’ place of business or neighbors, and deceptive techniques including abusive language and lying about the amount due or the status of a lawsuit. “I’ve seen almost everything” says Mr. Alexander, “the best advice I have for consumers is to take notes or make recordings of phone calls with debt collectors, and contact an experienced attorney as soon as possible.”
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For more information on how to sue debt collectors in Michigan contact the Alexander Law Firm:
The Alexander Law Firm
17200 W. Ten Mile Rd. Suite 200
Southfield, Michigan 48075
(248) 246-6353
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http://myfaircreditsite.com/sue-debt-collectors-michigan/
Author:
Google+ – Brandon Schoen G+