subject: Debt Collection Agency Fined 1.5 Million Dollars For Harassing Phone Calls [print this page] In a crazy turn of events, debt collectors from Advanced Call Center Technologies LLC have to pay out a tremendous one point five million dollars for rude and vulgar voicemails that were sent on a man's cell phone. According to sources, the agency sent out eight demeaning and threatening voice mails on Allen Jones' phone trying to collect what it said he owed on a credit card.
Most of the voice mails were ridden with rude language and horrifying racial slurs. "This is your mother (curse) wakeup call you little lazy (curse) (curse)," a collector was quoted as saying in one message. "Get your (racial slur) (curse) up and go pick some mother (curse) cotton fields," said another. Jones is African-American."This isn't acceptable. No one should have to experience what I had to go through," he said.
Mark Frenkel, one of Jones'' lawyers alleges: "If we didn't have the messages on tape, nobody would have ever believed that this occurred." "This is definitely, without any doubt, the most disgusting collection lawsuit I have ever seen," Dean Malone, Jones'' other lawyer, added. Jones took Advanced Call Center Technologies to court over the harassing calls. And last Friday, a Dallas County jury awarded him of the biggest verdicts of its type - 50,000 dollars in mental anguish and one point five million dollars in punitive damages.
"We made a statement today" stated Jones, "and the statement is we won't take abusive debt collectors sitting down." According to the lawyers, workers from Advanced Call Center Technologies confessed to the phone calls, but they are not sure if they are still with the company and whether it will appeal.
All the while, Jones has always disputed the debt and alleges that he paid it, and the sum in question was a small amount of two hundred dollars. It seems unfathomable that this man had to suffer like this for such a minuscule amount, and now, thanks to the American court system, and justice, it is.
