by Jeff Sovern Here. An excerpt: As with the mortgage cases, the investigation focuses on the banks' poor paperwork and their weak tracking of the debts. When they sold delinquent credit card debt to the buyers, often at only a few cents on the dollar, they allegedly failed to provide them with the evidence that […]
Category Archives: Debt Collection
Dalie Jimenez of Connecticut, James Greiner of Harvard, Lois R. Lupica of Maine, & Rebecca L. Sandefur of the American Bar Foundationand Illinois have written Using a Randomized Control Trial to Accomplish Multiple Goals: An RCT Evaluating What Works for Individuals in Financial Distress, Investigating the Debt Collection System, Exploring Ways to Increase Access to […]
by Jeff Sovern Back in 2008, Fred Williams, a reporter for the Buffalo News who had written stories about debt collectors, worked as a debt collector for an upstate New York debt collection firm. Williams was not exactly undercover–he disclosed that he had written the stories–but it sounds as if he was treated as any […]
Not that I want to generate sales of the book, but here is an ad for a guide for debt buyers that contains the statement above (HT: Gina Calabrese).
by Jeff Sovern I've been pulling together some materials for a section in the next edition of our casebook on debt collection litigation. Here is some of what I've found: 1. From FTC, Reparing a Broken System: Protecting Consumers in Debt Collection Litigation and Arbitration i (2010): “The system for resolving disputes about consumer debts […]
Here. An excerpt from what the collector supposedly said: "F— you! Pay us your money! You can't afford an attorney. You owe us. I hope your wife divorces your a–. If you would have served our country better you would not be a disabled veteran living off social security while the rest of us honest […]
Judith L. Fox of Notre Dame has written How Forum Determines Substance in Judicial Debt Collection, 31 Banking and Financial Services Rev. 11 (August 2012). Here's the abstract: In an email to the Small Claims Task Force, a committee appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court to investigate allegations of abuse in the Marion County Small […]
by Jeff Sovern Today's Times has a story headlined "In Prosecutors, Debt Collectors Find a Partner." An excerpt: The letters are sent by the thousands to people across the country who have written bad checks, threatening them with jail if they do not pay. They bear the seal and signature of the local district attorney’s […]
Here is a report on the pain involved in satisfying the "undue hardship" standard for discharging student loans in bankruptcy and here is a story about the case Scott Michelman blogged about earlier this week addressing debt collector liability for misleading borrowers about the dischargeability of student loans.