Debt Collection Fraud
Tue, Aug 21, 2007
In this day and age there is an ever increasing number of people who have a poor credit rating or who have debts they are struggling to pay. For this reason, fraudsters have seen debt collection as a means of making easy money.
Phone calls and letters from debt collecting agents can be upsetting for some people and a percentage of those will pay to get them off their backs. However, not all debt collection companies are what they seem. Even some of the legitimate ones use some pretty shady and borderline legal tactics too.
Credit Rating
So good are these people at what they do that they are even able to extract money from people who have no poor credit and no debt. They prey on the fact that the average person is concerned about their credit rating and will pay to keep it in good standing.
For those who do pay those committing this type of fraud, the problems often become worse. Once you have identified yourself as someone who will part with money to avoid these types of bullying tactics, your details are sold onto mailing lists as you are now a prime target for anyone else thinking of committing a similar fraud upon you.
With hundreds of legitimate debt collecting companies, buying up debts at 5% of their real value from firms who have all but written your debt off, it is easy for the fraudsters to hide in the mix. Bona fide agencies are well known to harass and threaten debtors so a fraudulent individual doing the same may be considered the norm.
Credit Agreements
Often, the fraud they are perpertrating will involve paying a reduced sum to clear the debt - in this case the fraudster gets an easy one time payment. Alternatively, they may even set up weekly payments or get you into credit agreements you really can’t afford, taking the sum you don’t owe as well as interest!
Best advice for dealing with such fraud is to talk to your creditor directly - if they have passed your details onto a debt collection agency then they will be able to tell you exactly who they are.
Never reply to emails or letters demanding payments unless you know exactly who is sending them and think very carefully before agreeing to a credit arrangement from a debt collector - you have to be regulated and authorised under the Financial Services Act to offer such a service.
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One of our readers owed a credit card debt to a bank of about 1,200 Dollars. He fell out of work and could not meet the debt.
Five years on he received a letter from a debt collecting firm with the amount and an account number to pay the sum and clear the debt.
Not being in a position to do so - unemployed and sick, he did nothing.
A year later he began to receive telephone calls asking for the money regularly, which became three or four calls a day.
When he agreed to make a monthly payment, the firm wanted the money paid to a different bank account from the one stated in their original letter, but would only deal over the telephone and refused to send him an account by mail or by e-mail. Nothing in writing at all ?
I suggested to this guy that he contact an attorney and pay the money through a local court. If the collector is genuine then they will not object. If they are fraudulent he will never hear from them again.
His bank has already written-off the debt.
Do you think this advice is okay to people who have doubts about debt-collecting telephone calls ?
I can’t comment on U.S. law David because I live in the UK.
I can tell you that in this country, though, when a bank writes off a debt that generally means you no longer have to pay it.
It may well leave a blemish on your credit file however.
Debt collectors are a scourge on humanity! I know, I married one
Yes, these guys are professionals as manipulating our fear is their daily job routine. I was a victim of this type of scam last year, and I paid them because I felt embarrassed when they actually called my office. I really wish I had purchase my updated credit report online for only $5~10 to double check any of my outstanding debt before sending that bankers check to them. Even though it was a relatively very small amount in my case, but I got really upset about myself, when I realized the fact later that collection agency was not even listed in my credit report. If you do not regularly monitor your credit scores, please do yourself a favor, get an updated credit report about you for a small cost, sometimes free, before you even start having any conversation or negotiation with them. And never ever give out your bank account info whatsoever for setting up any type of automatic payments, even the person claimed to be calling from your known creditors may not be who they said they are.