D CEO Magazine published “Debt Collectors Gone Wild” yesterday as a result of Dean Malone’s recent $1.7 million verdict in the Allen Jones case against Advanced Call Center Technologies, LLC. Mr. Malone was quoted several times in the story. Here is a link -
As we posted recently, Dean Malone and co-counsel obtained an approximate $1.7 million dollar verdict against a collection agency for racist voicemail messages allegedly left by it employee. It was our hope that the verdict would send a message to other collectors who use improper and abusive tactics. We just ran across a story of yet another situation in which someone was leaving racist voicemails to collect a debt and/or repossess a vehicle -
Debt collectors use a variety of tactics and terminology, and I have found over the years that many debt collectors use the same words and phrases. Some like to say “good luck” at the end of a harassing call or voicemail message. Many like to say that they are “legal representation” for a creditor. Others will tell a consumer that the collector will “mark it down as a refusal to pay” if the consumer does not make a payment over the phone. There is a provision in the Texas Debt Collection Act regarding this “refusal” language.
The Texas Debt Collection Act prohibits a debt collector from representing or threatening to represent to anyone other than a consumer that the consumer is willfully refusing to pay a non-disputed consumer debt when it is in dispute and the consumer has given the debt collector written notice of the dispute. Debt collectors will often violate this provision in order to harass the consumer through disclosure of private, yet false, facts to a consumer’s friends, co-workers, family, and neighbors.
T. Dean Malone and his co-counsel finished an approximate two-week jury trial yesterday against Advanced Call Center Technologies, LLC (“ACCT”) and two of its previous employees. The jury heard evidence of calls which included racial slurs, sexual comments, threats of violence, and profanity. The jury found that ACCT and its prior debt collector employees violated the Texas Debt Collection Act, engaged in unreasonable collection efforts, and invaded our client’s right to privacy (by intruding on his seclusion). The jury also determined that ACCT was negligent in hiring, supervising, training, and/or retaining a debt collection supervisor.
The jury provided $50,000.00 in mental anguish damages to our client and $143,000.00 in attorneys’ fees through trial. The jury also provided $1,500,000.00 in additional/punitive damages against ACCT.
Mr. Malone, his co-counsel, and our client were interviewed yesterday for a Channel 8 news story. Here is a link to the story (which ran during last night’s 10:00 p.m. news) -
The court will hold a hearing to decide whether to grant a permanent injunction against one or all of the defendants. The court will also consider a motion for judgment to be filed by our firm. No amounts have been paid by any of the defendants toward amounts awarded by the jury.
The Texas Debt Collection Act prohibits a debt collector from using or threatening violence or other criminal means to collect a debt. This is an obvious prohibition: a person cannot commit, or threaten to commit, criminal acts in order to obtain money from another person. Aside from being obvious, it might appear that the Act prohibits conduct that might never occur. Surely debt collectors don’t commit crimes just to collect debts. We have actually seen the following in cases we have handled:
Threat to “shank” someone
Threat to cut someone
Assault
Threat of assault
Unlawfully obtaining telephone call records
If you have been threatened with bodily injury by a debt collector, contact the police immediately. You might need to be persistent. Some police departments will tell you that you are calling about a civil matter, and that there is nothing that the police can do. However, when someone threatens to harm you, the threat might be a commission of a crime.
We have heard thousands of stories over the years about abusive debt collectors. There are plenty of debt collectors who comply with the law. However, for those who don’t, they tend to use the same tactics. I ran across a news story (link below) which had all the elements of harassment that I have seen many times.
The Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) generally does not apply to the actions of original creditors. However, Texas residents are protected not only by the FDCPA, but also by the Texas Debt Collection Act. Almost all provisions in the Texas Debt Collection Act (“TDCA”) apply not only to original creditors, but anyone collecting a consumer debt. A “debt collector” under the TDCA is “a person who directly or indirectly engages in debt collection and includes a person who sells or offers to sell forms represented to be a collection system, device, or scheme intended to be used to collect consumer debts.” As you can see, the definition is quite broad. Even so, our firm has not seen many cases in which a collection agency or creditor has engaged in abusive and harassing tactics based on forms provided by a third party. Usually, abuse is in the form of numerous calls to a consumer’s friends, neighbors, and co-workers by the creditor or debt collector.
Our law firm is no stranger to stories about harassing and abusive debt collection calls. A Scripps Howard survey confirms what we hear from consumers every day -
The Texas Debt Collection Act provides protection for people harassed and/or abused by creditors and debt collectors in connection with attempts to collect debts. However, it does not protect people for all types of debts.
If a collector’s conduct is to fall within the Act, the collector must be attempting to collect a consumer debt. The Act defines a “consumer debt” as “an obligation, or an alleged obligation, primarily for personal, family, or household purposes.” This is the type of debt that most consumers incur – credit card purchases for personal items, car loans, home loans, etc. A debt incurred to run a business would not usually be a “consumer debt” under the Act. Therefore, a person could not usually assert a claim under the Texas Debt Collection Act for harassment in connection with attempts to collect a business debt.
We have represented hundreds of consumers over the years who were harassed and ridiculed by debt collectors. We have seen all types of cases. Some involve back-to-back calls. Others involve profanity and racial slurs. Yet others involve in-person harassment. One thing that we have noticed is that a large number of the more abusive telephone harassment cases tend to involve debt collectors in or near Buffalo, New York. Here is a link to an article related to the issue:
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