With our economy on the scids, debt collection abuse is on the rise. You can contact our Chicago area debt collection abuse prevention attorneys for a free consultation to advise you if you can stop debt collection abuse by filing suit. You can click here to see a copy of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the federal law which prohibits debt collection abuse.
The FTC offers the following advice on preventing Debt Collector Harassment:
Fair Debt Collection
Are you a consumer with questions or concerns related to potential fraud and do not know what government agency to contact? The Chicago Federal Reserve Bank provides a web page that allows you to link to government agencies that may help you. The web page has links to federal and state banking agencies, federal and state securities agencies, and state insurance agencies located in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin. You can also link to various useful financial , insurance, and banking tools, and to lists of financial services regulators, and consumer complaint filing information. Click here to link to the Chicago Federal Reserve Fraud web page.
If you need legal assistance in pursuing a civil lawsuit because government regulators cannot help you in recovering money lost due to fraud, our private sector lawyers can assist you by clicking here to contact us.
The National Association of Consumer Advocates provides the following advice about Debt Collector Abuse:
Debt Collection Abuse (FDCPA)
In spite of federal and state legislation, debt collectors continue to abuse consumers in order to unfairly pressure them into paying debts. These abuse tactics are often intended to scare or intimidate consumers, sometime with threats of violence or arrest. Other debt collectors will try to pile on illegal interest or fees to make the debt seem larger that it actually is. In some instances, these debts are time-barred, discharged in bankruptcy, or not owed for other reasons.
Illegal debt collection practices exposed:
The Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) website summarizes illegal debt collection practices. Below is the summary from the site:
Fair Debt Collection
Judge Dow of the Federal Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed without prejudice a bona fide error defense in a putative Fair Debt Collection Act class-action for failure to plead facts akin to the “first paragraph in any newspaper story.” The Court ruled that a bona fide error defense raises a claim of mistake, and therefore must be pled with factual particularity under Rule 9.
The Court held:
Notwithstanding the “disfavored” status of motions to strike and the “liberal pleading standard” in Fed. R. Civ. P. 8, the Court concludes that the motion is well taken. Because the defense at issue deals with an alleged “mistake” — a “bona fide error” in the statutory parlance — Defendant is obligated to comply with both Fed. R. Civ. P. 8 and 9(b). The standard under Rule 9(b) requires parties to state the circumstances of a mistake with “particularity.” As the Seventh Circuit has explained, Rule 9(b) mandates that parties allege at the pleading stage “the who, what, when, where, and how of the mistake.” GE Capital Corp. v. Lease Resolution Corp., 128 F.3d 1074, 1078 (7th Cir. 1997). Defendant correctly points out that Rule 9(b) permits pleaders to allege matters such as intent and knowledge in a more general manner. However, the remaining factual details of an alleged mistake — for example, who made the mistake and when and how it occurred — must be set out with “particularity” in the pleading. Although Defendant has added some detail to its original effort to plead its affirmative defense, there still is work to do before the Court reasonably can conclude that Defendant has complied with its obligation to provide “the first paragraph of any newspaper story” (GE Capital Corp., 128 F.3d at 1078) setting forth with particularity Defendant’s version of the circumstances supporting the defense, as Rule 9(b) and the Seventh Circuit case law require.
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