subject: Suing Collection Agents For A Profession? [print this page] It is a fact that Americans haunted with outstanding debts and delinquent accounts will typically suffer through a number of punishments for their past mistakes. Threatening collection letters, frequent phone calls, negative credit marks, and even the possibility of getting sued are examples of punishments for not paying up. One only needs to type "debt collector" into Google to find a whole slew of angry, defensive blogs that are anti-debt collector. After all, personal finance, is well, personal, and it becomes a sensitive issue when someone is asking you why you don't have money.
However, a new trend is signaling a power shift- more and more debtors seem to be suing debt collectors first! The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is a stiff and lofty piece of legislation written in 1978 governing specifically what third party debt collectors can and can't do. Any kind of violation of the FDCPA can be reason alone to take a collection agent to court. The FDCPA says that third party debt collectors can ONLY call between the hours of 8:30 AM until 9:00 PM. With the amount of frivolous lawsuits on the increase, I would not be surprised if a third party debt collector got dragged into court for calling someone at 8:28 AM.
Do not get me wrong. I think that the FDCPA is totally necessary. When it comes to personal finance, people need to be protected. People also deserve to be treated with respect, and live lives free of harassment and belittlement. But there were 8,347 consumer lawsuits filed against collection companies in 2009. That's a 55 percent increase over 2008, and double THAT number filed in 2007. As the recession persists and people become unable to repay debt, it makes sense that debt collectors may be more hostile and persistent. But there is an unmistakable trend here: suing debt collectors has become the new thing.
Some of the debtors are plaintiffs suing for the first time. Many of these people have substantiated claims of harassment or abuse. In all fairness though, it is a distinct possibility that more people are more aware of the FDCPA, have encountered a surly collections agent and are suing on a technicality. But there is a rarer, stranger breed of debtors who compulsively sue debt collectors. Generally, these people have debts worth tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many have claimed to sue debt collectors as a job in the news. First of all, how does someone even rack up that much debt? These people will purposely bait debt collectors over the phone while recording conversations, and when if exasperated debt collector violates the FDCPA in response, they will immediately be taken to court.
I have seen interviews with these characters, and it's their hope that favorable judgments against collection companies might place them on a "collections blacklist." If he has successfully sued enough debt collectors, other agencies will catch on and want nothing to do with him. This is just puzzling to me. I have always been good with finance and it simply blows my mind that someone could owe ten thousand dollars or more in debt. And it seems like the effort put into suing these debt collectors might be more productively channeled and more fulfilling if put towards obtaining an honest job.
Again, I stress that many debtors who find themselves in court with collection agencies have good reason to sue. But the fact that the number of lawsuits against debt collectors has increased by pretty much one hundred percent in two years seems to prove that suing debt collectors appears to be "the new thing." To be perfectly honest, I work in the field, and most of the collection agents I know are scared stiff of getting sued. They know the FDCPA like the back of their hand, and would never lose their temper and jeopardize their jobs. Just like debtors, they also have bills to pay and families to feed. I receive emails all the time offering to sell me lists of debtors who have sued more than one collection agency so that they can be avoided.
I believe that both people on both sides of the phone need to remember that they are talking to a fellow human being. I have heard anecdotal stories on both ends, about debt collectors who threatened to throw debtors into jail (which is a total and completely illegal lie) to debt collectors who are able to offer financial advice and help debtors out of sticky financial situations. So, as someone who is not a debt collector, but spends a lot of time observing the situation, I implore everyone: "Can't we all just get along?
