Sunday, January 07, 2007
Debt collector claims “not to care” about FDCPA?
A reader sent me “Doug Danger’s” posting:
THE CREAM OF THE CROP RISES TO THE TOP - Debt Collection 101
I collect debts for a legitimate collection agency. My work focuses exclusively on collecting bad debt—generally either old debt that is beyond the Statute of Limitations or Unlicensed Lender Payday Debt where the number of rollovers billed to debtor exceeds the principle and legally permissible interest.
I love my work. I am following after my old man who was the chief debt collector for a Jewish Loan Shark in suburban Chicago back in the good ole days. I feel like I am carrying the family torch. While I am not alloted as much flexibility in my methods compared to my dad since my debtors are not generally local, I will go to extreme measures to collect on debt.
I do not believe in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. I realize that it is a law, and my company generally complies with the FDCPA in collection of legitimate debt.
I have one motto and one gameplan that both guide my debt collecting.
My gameplan is to be cognizant at all times of the fact that I am collecting bad debt. Therefore, I am not going to be able to collect from any one. I have to size up my competition.
I believe that there are 3 types of debtors when it comes to collecting bad debt. The first step to deciding how to handle a phone call to the debtor is to determine which category they fall into.
Category 1: People who realize that the debt is uncollectible because it is barred by state or federal statute. I don’t violate the FDCPA until I have sized up a debtor as NOT being in this category. That’s because these are the types who will file a complaint on me AND it’s not worth the risk because they are not going to pay anyway—they know the law is on their side.
Category 2: People who are not aware of their rights but are hostile from the get-go with me. I try to use reverse psychology with them. And when I harass them it is always in a more subtle manner. I try to reason with them but subtly I try to humiliate them for not paying the debt. I have more luck with these people than with Category Oners, but this is still not the preferred group of people. They are also the type likely to stumble across this site. If that happens, I don’t get paid.
Category 3: These are the people who tremble and shake and care freaked out when I call. They are the ones to go crying and just lose it. I harass the living daylights out of these people. I make threats of arrest, property seizure, wage garnishment, and sometimes (usually if it’s a woman) I will threaten bodily harm if there is no payment. Sometimes these people will stumble across this site and not pay. But I have pretty good luck with these people.
The Motto: Don’t put off tomorrow what I can make today.
In collecting bad debts, you have to take anything you can get. If I can get $100 up front as part of a deferred payment plan, that is still probably more than we paid for the debt.
When you consider that the person may soon learn that this is bad debt and cancel the payment plan, at least I got the $100 up front. When someone wants a payment plan that starts anything more than 3 days out, I suggest a small amount paid today. Because even in that few days, they may learn of their rights.
PLUS, once I have their bank account information, technically I could still debit their account even after they change their mind. I can just leave it to them to dispute with their bank.
So, that’s really the key: GETTING SOME MONEY TODAY and getting the debtors’ bank account information TODAY.
A final note I’d like to share is why I am here. I am here to read about the companies we do business. I am also here to find debtors that I may be dealing with. I have on occasion stumbled across a debtor who I had dealt with posting on this site. The names and situations were similar enough. Since I had been so rude to them, and you people told them I violated the FDCPA, I called back the debtor the next day under a phony name and voice, and I claimed that I had heard the phone call with the debtor and the collector was then fired on the spot. I assure them that we comply with the law.
First of all, nobody knows whether “Doug” is a debt collector. If so, he’s definitely one of the dumbest collectors around. Sooner or later, someone will ID him. And, if regulators WANTED to find out who he is, they’d know really fast.
Regarding the substance of his posting, most of it is salesmanship 101. There are many seminars teaching sales people how to assess the target and how to close. That’s one reason why most people don’t do well when they negotiate their own debts.
When it comes to physical threats, I don’t think it happens very often. I’ve never heard a recording with physical threats. Then again, the kind of people he does threaten are likely not able to record.
That a collector can publicly state that he ignores the law is definitely more important than how he collects.
“Doug” just does what most corporations and lawyers do, make as much money as possible while ignoring laws and the truth. The regulators couldn’t care less. If “Doug” really is a collector, it would be a ton of work to contact every debtor he collected from and to establish the FDCPA violations.
However, it is quite likely that “Doug” is associated with the site owners, a CREDIT COUNSELING and DEBT CONSOLIDATION company.
Obviously, postings like “Doug’s” increase traffic and motivate debtors to hire them. Looking around that site is more repulsive than reading “Doug’s” posting.
Credit - Collection - Economic News • (0) Comments • Permalink
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation kills the people they claim to want to help
An outstanding article by LA Times writers Charles Piller, Edmund Sanders and Robyn Dixon on two of the word’s most evil people: Bill and Melinda Gates
Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation
... At the end of 2005, the Gates Foundation endowment stood at $35 billion, making it the largest in the world. Then in June 2006, Warren E. Buffett, the world’s second-richest man after Bill Gates, pledged to add about $31 billion in installments from his personal fortune. Not counting tens of billions of dollars more that Gates himself has promised, the total is higher than the gross domestic products of 70% of the world’s nations. ...
The 5 page article describes in great detail how the Gates Foundation invests in pharmaceutical companies and polluters like oil companies and paper mills. It is stunning to read how they DIRECTLY cause disease and misery in Africa, while claiming to want to help.
How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches
...The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972. ...
Bill and Melinda Gates “help” the poor by killing them and Iraq was “liberated” to have at least half a million people killed, to have the country destroyed and polluted with depleted uranium and now FINALLY their oil will be stolen.
Since the “insurgents” don’t seem capable of stopping the takeover, maybe aliens will intervene. NPR has an interesting interview with Chicago Tribune transportation reporter Jon Hilkevtich.
Not only is it amazing to have such qualified witnesses, but both United and the FAA LIED about the election day sighting at O’Hare until Hilkevtich filed an FOIA request. Funny how that goes ...
But I’m not too optimistic about alien intervention, at best they’re watching and making sure we don’t blow up the planet. Maybe we’re some alien high school experiment, an advanced version of Sim City.
It sure is frustrating to be able to read about all that corruption, not being able to DO anything about it and knowing that just about everybody with the power and money to do something is only interested in accumulating more power and money.
Legal • Court - rulings - procedures • Corruption • (0) Comments • Permalink
Friday, January 05, 2007
Reader mail: ASC refuses to reissue stolen refund check
Christine,
First, great job on your website. There’s no doubt, that your advice will/has helped lots of people. I came across your website while doing research on America’s Servicing Company (ASC). I have had two big problems with ASC since they purchased my loan from HomeBanc in July of 2006.
After ASC purchased my loan from HomeBanc in July 2006 they immediately labeled my account delinquent. I did not realize it was delinquent until August 2006. When I questioned ASC as to why my account was delinquent they stated that I was missing a payment. I provided proof of the payment by faxing them a copy of the cashed check by HomeBanc in July of 2006 and HomeBanc’s letter stating that they had sent the payment to ASC. Finally, after two months of arguing with them, they “found” the money and sent me a very lame apology letter.
Next, and this is the big one, ASC sent an escrow surplus check to an old address (an address I never gave ASC but HomeBanc did) for $766.15. Someone stole this check, made a fake ID in my name, and then cashed the check at a liquor store. When I requested that ASC issue a new check they sent me a letter stating they were not liable and to contact my local authorities. I next had my attorney send ASC a demand letter for the escrow funds. Naturally, ASC has not responded back to that letter, nor do I expect them to respond. I have also filed a police report, a complaint with the BBB, and a complaint with the Maryland Attorney General’s office.
I am interested in your thoughts/comments. Is there anything more I can do? Take them to small claims court?...
This is one of the weirdest complaints I’ve ever seen. I would definitely sue them, but they should be sued in “real” court and have to pay punitive damages and attorneys fees. Check http://naca.net/ for an attorney.
Even if they had sent the check to the CORRECT address, it still is NOT your problem that someone else cashed it. YOU really didn’t have to file a police report—it’s ASC who got defrauded, NOT you.
ASC owes you the $766.15 refund—they have NO proof that you cashed their check. If they claim that you lied, they can pay for an expert witness to determine whether it’s your signature on the check. Assuming that the person who stole the check doesn’t know how you sign, any IDIOT should be able to tell the difference.
Additionally, ASC HAS your signature on the checks you have sent and on the loan documents, are they saying the signature looks like yours?
ASC needs to be taught that they have no right to make YOU work and the ONLY way they’ll change their scummy practices is to be sued hard.
Can you imagine a CONSUMER claiming that they sent a check to a creditor and telling the creditor to file a police report?
It’s unbelievable what these banksters get away with.
Credit - Collection - Economic News • (0) Comments • Permalink
Monday, January 01, 2007
WANTED: developer for credit report and FICO score analysis software
I’ve previously mentioned the need for software to analyze the 3 myFICO reports and to provide USEFUL information to consumers as well as to save me a lot of time when I prepare the Credit Analysis. I finally took a few hours to summarize what I’d like to see.
The goal is to be able to import the myFICO.com reports and to reorganize and analyze the data. Since Fair Isaac is not capable of posting a sample report that doesn’t have the formatting screwed up (is it THAT difficult?), here’s my Equifax myFICO report.
SUMMARIZING SCORE FACTORS
We need to get rid of the generic bla bla bla, display only the relevant data about the Score Factors and highlight the percentages, number of months, dollar amounts, etc.
Cool feature: TRACKING changes in score factors
As you import new reports, you should be able to click on a “history” button to view previous score factors and have changes highlighted. It gets complex as Fair Isaac reports “positive” factors which don’t exist.
All FICO factors are NEGATIVE, but Fair Isaac tries to show people what impacts positively on their FICO scores and my guess is that they list the most important factors that do NOT result in a big score drop as positive. It is odd when the account history factor is positive on one CRA’s report and negative on another because either different accounts are reported or the reports are scored by different scoring models.
Scores in the 600s usually show one positive factor and higher scores show 2 positive factors. Creditors usually receive the 4 most important negative factors and NO positive factors, as do consumers with very LOW scores. And for Experian Fair Isaac reports only negative factors without specifics.
DISPLAYING HOW EACH ACCOUNT IS REPORTED BY ALL CRAs
Since each CRA reports different data, it’s not possible to simply merge the data and use common field labels. Only Trans Union reports the date closed, only Experian has the status date, Equifax reports the date of last activity, etc.
The PrivacyGuard sample report shows how they’re NOT capable or simply don’t want to report the Experian date of status, etc. and they OMIT the MOST IMPORTANT data—making these reports practically useless aside from checking to see whether an account is reported at all or with the correct balance.
It’s also a common problem that creditors use varying names to report to the CRAs and one should be able to manually match up accounts and possibly even link them to separately reported collections.
And we need an extra field to add the scheduled deletion date, reported only on the reports provided directly by Experian and Trans Union.
ACCOUNT SUMMARY
The myFICO reports include account summaries, but unfortunately OMIT the most important data as you can see on page 6 of my Equifax myFICO report:
There are NO credit limits and NO date of last activity—the most important data is omitted.
So we need a much more complete account listing with the most relevant data reported by each CRA. We can lose the useless account number field and of course we should be able to SORT the listing by balance, date opened, etc.
CALCULATOR
Fair Isaac and many other sites have the useless “what if” calculators producing nothing but wild and mostly incorrect guesses of how scores will change rather than dealing with FACTS.
The balance/limit ratio
This should be a standard calculation for all revolving accounts and separately for all installment accounts, but one should be able to make changes to the account balances and limits or include/exclude accounts reported with incorrect account types or balances.
Account history
I’d like to see the oldest accounts by type as well as the average length of history. That’s simple number crunching. Again, one should be able to add/exclude accounts.
It’s very helpful to be able to show how the reporting or FAILURE to report an account impacts on important scores factors when you sue.
FLAGGING ERRORS
This is what the CRAs deliberately do NOT do. Trans Union routinely reports accounts as opened after they were closed. All CRAs often report Capital One accounts with balances HIGHER than the HIGH credit. How can a past due amount be higher than the balance or high credit?
Experian specializes in destroying credit scores by reporting NEW late payments after accounts were charged off. I rarely see an Experian report with charge-offs that doesn’t contain incorrect and undated lates and Equifax also routinely reports undated and new lates.
Trans Union sometimes deletes the DATE CLOSED, resulting in MAJOR score drops.
An incorrect CURRENT status for a previously charged off account can also cause tremendous problems.
These are just a few examples of common OBVIOUSLY INCORRECT reporting. And of course all MISSING data such as credit limits for revolving accounts, open dates, etc. should also be flagged.
INQUIRIES
Unfortunately, Fair Isaac only reports hard inquiries. They should be listed and one has to be able to annotate them with the permissible purpose and tag for further action if not permissible. One should also be able to add questionable soft inquiries for further action.
CUSTOMIZATION
Users must be able to annotate accounts, tag for further action, keep track of disputes and investigation results, etc.
It would be very cool to have the software highlight all changes for data that does not normally change (account type, date opened, closed, limit, etc.) when a new report is imported. Accounts and data to be tracked could be user defined.
INSTRUCTIONS
Users should be able to easily see explanations of the score factors and reported data. It must be made very clear that the goal should not be to have the most correct report and that disputes often result in LOWER scores, either due to correction or deletion of the disputed account.
AFTER deletion of the chargeoff: FICO score went DOWN 18 points!
The software should alert the user to common problems based on the types of accounts reported. And of course there should be sample disputes for incorrect reporting such as after bankruptcy along with the explanation why NOT to send the bankruptcy filing to the CRAs.
CONCLUSION
As you can see, this is a rather complex project and now you know why it takes several hours just to set up my clients’ private forums with their score factors, open accounts, inquiries and derogatory accounts.
The above is by no means a complete wish list, but it should give you a good idea of what it’s all about. I can see software for offline use, but think the best use is an online setup with storage space for each user to upload scanned mortgage credit reports, CRA investigation results, etc.
In the many years I’ve worked with my clients, I found that the lack of organization is a major problem. I even use a private forum to keep track of my own credit disputes, it is very cool to be able to see every dispute even years ago—at a glance.
All personal data should be stripped from the imported reports and users should be advised to redact their personal data and account numbers if they upload reports or scans. It’s simply not necessary to take the risk of having personal and financial data compromised.
Software that actually alerts consumers to much of the CRAs’ incorrect and incomplete reporting would be their worst nightmare.
I’d expect the CRAs to hire some hackers to sabotage this type of service and a security breach resulting in ID theft would be the end of it. But even without personal and financial data, server security is a major issue.
Of course there should be a forum for users to discuss the software and to get help and they should be able to order personal assistance, the type of service I provide now, but requiring a lot less time.
Obviously, it’s a major effort to develop the software and I’m not going to pay someone by the hour to play around and finally concede that it’s too difficult. I’m looking for an experienced professional willing to do what it takes to get started with the basics and add features as the bugs are worked out. I’ll test it with my clients and CreditFactors subscribers could volunteer to beta test.
Almost forgot, users will have to be able to subscribe, cancel subscriptions, upgrade, etc.
And it’s one of those jobs that will never be done as the CRAs and Fair Isaac continually change the reporting and scoring and the software has to be adjusted accordingly.
Since there is a ton of money to be made, I won’t be surprised if someone else takes this opportunity to make big bucks.
As a matter of fact, several developers asked me to have a look at their software in recent years. Unfortunately, they did not have much credit and scoring knowledge and they focused on deletion of all derogs instead of increasing scores. They didn’t even come close to my expectations and were not willing or able to redesign their software.
I don’t have to be involved long term, I just want to see it happen. I’ll be happy to work as a consultant for a while, to ensure that the CREDIT and SCORING issues are properly addressed.
But I’m also willing to put up my time and a few bucks in a joint venture, unfortunately don’t have much cash. And I’m sure that many readers would pay for this service, so it could be practically self funding—as all my credit and scoring research.
If you’re interested, please post a comment here or send me e-mail with “Credit software development” or some other descriptive subject so I don’t junk it.
Happy New Year and my predictions for 2007
My predictions:
1) I will prevail on appeal against Capital One and Equifax. Capital One will report the credit LIMITS or stop reporting to the CRAs. But creditors and CRAs will continue to implement new ways to artificially lower the credit scores of the people who already have below average scores.
2) Courts will prohibit the submission of credit reports as exhibits by creditors and CRAs unless filed under seal. The general public and criminals have no permissible purpose to view consumer credit reports.
3) Record foreclosures and a lot of idiotic proposals for new laws that won’t be enforced rather than enforcement of existing laws.
Nobody can forecast what will happen with real estate prices, too many unpredictable factors determine whether people will buy homes or wait for lower prices. Obviously, if buyers don’t buy, some sellers will HAVE to sell at much lower prices and that could cause the collapse of the market.
Builders and sellers have been providing incentives such as huge credits at closing and freebie extras, the statistics about sales are not at all representing what’s really going on in the market. Builders have been moving mountains to get deals closed.
The government will encourage banks to lend to anyone who can sign their name (even if it’s just an x) and will continue to allow totally false and illegal advertising of mortgages. We’ll see more “sucker buyers” and horrible loans, resulting in more foreclosures down the road if prices don’t go up again.
4) Record high and low temperatures, droughts, storms, tornadoes, hail, snow, floods—often in unexpected places. You can’t go wrong with that prediction, it’s a given.
5) I still won’t be able to move south of the border, but I’ll get closer and I will learn at least a little Spanish and a lot more about building and alternative power so that I’m ready to build as soon as I find that 100+ acre site for my casita somewhere in the mountains / high desert.
It’ll be interesting to see what the Democrats will accomplish and what will happen in Iraq and Iran.
Most likely, the trends will continue.
Less privacy, more surveillance, fewer rights for individuals—in the name of national security. If too many people make too much noise about it, we’ll have another terrorist attack.
Multi-national mergers, increasing corporate power over legislators, corruption and preemption of state consumer protection laws will continue. Tension in the middle east and other hot spots and the occasional pipeline/refinery accident will keep oil prices fluctuating to ensure record profits for the oil companies and war related corporations (weapons, security, the private contractors).
And most people won’t have a clue what’s going on and they won’t care. Most Americans will be too busy to do a lot of thinking, as they’re working 2 or 3 jobs, raising kids, watching TV and drinking cheap beer.
All in all, the best case scenario for 2007 is that it’ll be like 2006.
