The MOTHER of evil debt colltion agencies...

[tharpdevenport]

Unicredit American, Inc. -- a name you will not forget after reading the articled linekd in this post.


What makes them such bastards compared to ones that threaten to take away you social security, harrasse your neighbors, or even ones caught on tape telling you to kill yourself? Well, I'm glad you asked.


Picture this:

You get a knock on your door. A sheriff is standing there. You're served and told you got to appear before a judge on your credtd debt or face jail time. You show up, there's a court room, a judge -- the whole shabang. You go to court.

There's only one minor catch though ... there was no sheriff, or court room, of judge -- these were all FAKE sets and actors Unicredt America set up. And people fell for it.

GODDAMN SONS OF BITCHES. This goes beyond -- I don't even have the words at the second.

Thankfully, they are being sued.

(Attorney General website news article link)



I guess that brings us to: what's the most evil thing a debt collector has ever done to you?

I've only had one personal encounter, but it was nothing more than them wanting the money, but I used to fuck with debt collectors for a friend of mine (they jacked up his credit card interest rates after Obama tried to reform the credit card industry, and in spite of him NEVER paying late, always paying early, and almost always paying OVER what he owed, they jerked him up sugnificantly).

I remember one time I was doing what I normally did cut on funky disco music for a minute ("CHiPs" V1), and then check to see if they're still there; 99% of the time, they were not.
But this one time... (trying to recall from memory here):

ME: "Hello?" slyly.
HER: "Yes, hello?"
ME: "You're not follish enough to still be on hold, are you?"
HER: "Yes, I'm follish enough."
ME: "Oh, good -- then you can listen to mroe music," I cut the CD back on and put the phone back up to the speaker.

A minute or two later I checked again, and she was still there. I simply hung up on her.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

The sad reality is that the sleazy tactics of debt collectors are effective and what they make from those tactics more than offsets any measly fines they might have to pay. The "mock court" thing is a new one, I must admit. That's clever. I hope they pay dearly for that sort of bullshit. Debt collectors have a bad enough reputation without douchebags like these pushing the envelope.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I'm mixed here. On one hand, it feels like fraud. On the other hard, they're arguably using fraudulent means to obtain what is more or less their money. Quite a strange situation.

Then again, there are legal remedies to compel people to pay. So in that regard, this kind of self-help isn't good. Plus, there might be impersonated a police officer issues too.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It is, or at least should be, irrelevant whether or not it's "their" money. They have no right to use fraud to collect it. It's no more legitimate than if somebody owes me money and I go and pull a gun on them to get them to pay.

 

[Tiberius Jim]

When I got fired from RadioShack under false charges of theft, I apparently got dumped into the pool of names for RS's lawyers to begin sending threatening letters out to. They basically said that if I paid them the amount listed that they'd put everything behind them and move on...but if I didn't, I could face a lawsuit! I looked them up, and turned out they were bogus. They send these letters to everyone and their mother, even if they've only been accused of theft, and only prosecute on about 1 or 2 out of every million they send out. So I ignored them...they kept coming. They amount would increase every time they sent one. Soon after, I went to a hearing due to RadioShack appealing my rights to unemployment benefits. I "won" the hearing and sure enough...the letters stopped.

The sad thing is I'm sure a lot of people get scared and pay the bastards.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

My Mom signed my sister up as an authorized user on her Chase credit card in case she had any emergencies while at college. Unlike co-signers, authorized users can't be held responsible for any debt on the card. When my mom died in June, we closed the account and sent them a copy of the death certificate. Even though my sister had never used the card, the debt was exclusively my Mom's, and my sister wasn't legally responsible for it, Chase Bank still had a collection agency harass her numerous times to try and intimidate her into paying off the card. We complained to Chase and the collection agency, but they still continued. Fortunately it seems to have stopped finally. Bunch of vultures, though.

 

[Orcus]

I'm intrigued by all this. I don't know the laws of the USA but isn't it a criminal offence to obtain (or attempt to obtain) money under false pretences? Impersonating law enforcement and court officials is a pretty false pretence. In fact...

...impersonating judges and court officals is surely impersonating the government of your country. Isn't that considered treason in the US?

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I'm intrigued by all this. I don't know the laws of the USA but isn't it a criminal offence to obtain (or attempt to obtain) money under false pretences? Impersonating law enforcement and court officials is a pretty false pretence. In fact...

...impersonating judges and court officals is surely impersonating the government of your country. Isn't that considered treason in the US?

Not treason, no (that's very rare and reserved for trying to overthrow, betray, or actively participate in war against the federal government), but impersonating a law enforcement officer or public official is a mid-level to serious offense in most states. Pennsylvania's law (where this happened) on impersonating a public servant is a second degree misdemeanor. Though that would apply to the actual lower-level employees posing as public officials rather than the company higher-ups. You have to hit them in the corporate holdings.

 

[Flashover]

A supplier put a lien on our business over a debt.... which stopped us from accessing our "daily" line of credit... which caused us to suffer a massive setback and lay off six workers.

Total amount we owed? Brace yourselves: Three dollars and sixty five cents.

We took this one all the way through the court system, turned everything around on them and they ended up having to pay for the inconvenience. I forget how we pulled that off, but more or less it came down to "you brought a million-dollar-a-month business to a screeching halt over three dollars?!"

 

[Alidar Jarok]

It is, or at least should be, irrelevant whether or not it's "their" money. They have no right to use fraud to collect it. It's no more legitimate than if somebody owes me money and I go and pull a gun on them to get them to pay.

There's a difference as to whether or not this is considered a violent means. Violence in this context is interpreted extremely broadly, so I would say yes, but it's not as clear cut as a gun.

Plus, I'm sure they did other things as well that would make them targets. When there is a procedure (the real court system), the courts tend to frown on you taking self help (especially to the extreme of creating a fake court system).

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It is, or at least should be, irrelevant whether or not it's "their" money. They have no right to use fraud to collect it. It's no more legitimate than if somebody owes me money and I go and pull a gun on them to get them to pay.

This is correct.

Let's take a step back and look at how the debt collection industry works.

Say you take out a credit card from Chase Bank or whoever. You run up a balance and don't pay it. Chase will make some attempts to get you to pay up. But the way a lot of creditors work is that they'll make some half-hearted attempts to get you to pay and then they'll just charge it off. This means they list the debt as a loss on their books so they can get a tax write-off. At that point, they may or may not do anything more with it. The most likely next step is sending it to a third-party collection agency--a company like Unicredit. What's interesting about third-party collection agencies is that they are very limited in what they can do because they don't really hold the debt. Chase could do a lot more to you for a delinquent debt.

A third-party collector could either be contracted to collect the debt (on commission) or have bought it outright (for pennies on the dollar.) But third-party collectors can't do everything the original creditor can, and they aren't given carte blanche to engage in fraud in order to get paid.

Having worked in this industry I can tell you it's only a step or two above a guy with a baseball bat coming in to break your legs. They dance all over the line of what's legal and often break the law if they think they can get away with it. The fines are pitiful so why not?

My most amusing bout with a collector was a lawyer hired by a former landlord. There were some damages to an apartment I vacated, but I took issue with one item in particular--they wanted me to pay to replace the carpet, which had been damaged by a backed-up toilet caused by my neighbor in the townhouse next door. They were well aware of this situation and knew the damage wasn't my fault. But they wanted me to pay $3000 to replace the carpet. I told them I would pay the other damages but no way in hell was I paying for that fucking carpet. I think we went around for a few months with this guy calling me and sending me letters, and I always offered to pay for everything but the carpet. He threatened to sue and all that other bullshit, but I think he knew he wouldn't be able to make the carpet thing stick. He eventually settled for other damages and I never did end up paying for that carpet. Fucking douchebag.

For anyone who is troubled by debt collectors, I offer this advice: try to settle. Especially if you are really delinquent, like more than 6 months. Ask them if they'll settle and how much they want. If it's more than 50% of the original debt, just bide your time. They'll come down. It's expensive to sue people and after they get a judgment they still have to get a writ of attachment to garnish your wages--assuming you even have any.

And if you have no income, well, you can't get blood from a turnip. Eventually, they will just give up. It'll piss all over your credit rating for 7-10 years but they'll stop bothering you sooner or later.