What do I do When a Debt Collector Threatens to send me to the Legal Department?
A favorite tactic of debt collectors is to threaten to sue the debtor, but this can get them into trouble, especially if they have no intention of suing.
I contend that the debt collector threatens to sue you, and they are employee of the debt collection agency and not the creditor or the person who owns the debt at that time, that they are violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) because they cannot possibly be certain that the creditor is in fact going to sue the debtor. Threatening to file a lawsuit against a debtor if you have no intent to do so is a violation of the FDCPA.
Debt collection agencies have caught on to this, and while some are doing the right thing and instructing their collectors not to threaten legal action, others are allowing their collectors to say “If you don’t pay this today I’m going to send it to legal”, or “If we don’t get a payment today your account will be referred to the legal department”.
I think I can make a very good argument in court that if the debt collection agency itself doesn’t have lawyer on staff, they have no right to threaten to send your account to the legal department. Think about it for a minute, telling someone your intentions to send them to the legal department implies that you are going to sue them, and that would be a threat. If the collection agency doesn’t have an attorney working for them and there is no legal department, they had no intention of sending you to the legal department, and therefore they were threatening you with legal action that they could not take and they are violating the FDCPA.
I’m not sure if that argument would hold water in court, but I think it would. Collection agencies are not in any hurry to find out either.
The bottom line is this, if a debt collection agency is threatening to sue you, you have a reasonable argument that they’re threatening you with legal action that they don’t intend to take.
This is just one of any number of the FDCPA violations that collection agencies routinely use as a collection tactic. A letter from a good FDCPA attorney will make a collection agency shake in their shoes.
Think about what’s on the line for the collection agency. If they go into court, they have to pay a lawyer to defend them, and if they are found liable for violating FDCPA they not only have to pay a fine but the debtor’s attorney’s fees. If they’re found violating FDCPA, the fair Trade Commission will be monitoring the more, as will a lot of other gladhanding agencies in the US Federal Government. I’m not a person who likes Federal intervention, but we don’t have debtor’s prisons country for a reason.
Don’t let yourself a imprisoned by a rogue debt collector. If you have debt problems and you’re in over your head, or you have a debt collection agency calling you that just doesn’t get it, call me at 484-661-2891 or e-mail me at jim@padebt911.com and we can discuss your options together. How long should the collection agency be allowed to threaten to send you the legal before you send them to your own legal department?
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