I have written many times on debt collection scams, and they just keep on coming. If the scamsters would devote their efforts to legitimate labor, they might be very successful.
James Rufus Koren and Jim Puzzanghera wrote in the October 2, 2015, L.A. Times:
Two auto lending companies controlled by low-profile L.A. billionaire Don Hankey will have to pay more than $48 million in fines and refunds after a federal consumer watchdog found the lenders were using illegal tactics to collect on loans. Among the hardball tactics, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was a program that disguised debt collectors’ caller ID information to make it appear calls were coming from pizza parlors or florists. Westlake Financial Services and subsidiary Wilshire Consumer Credit, both part of Hankey’s Mid-Wilshire conglomerate Hankey Group, also falsely threatened to file criminal charges against borrowers; contacted employers, family and friends without required permission; and changed the terms of loans without informing customers, the bureau said.
Since he’s a billionaire, it looks like Hanky-Panky has made crime pay handsomely. One of the lies stands out: The claim that a collector can file criminal charges against a debtor (with the implied threat of jail time).
There are only two kinds of debts that you can be jailed for: Willful refusal to pay taxes (26 U.S. Code § 7201) and willful refusal to pay your bankruptcy attorney; oops, I mean willful refusal to pay child support).
Therefore, if a debt collector threatens to have you jailed if you don’t pay the debt, you can point to the Handy case as an example of what the law can do to the debt collector. Better yet, why not just get rid of the debt altogether through bankruptcy?
If you are a debtor in the Central District of California, and want to get debt relief, contact an extremely knowledgeable and highly skilled bankruptcy attorney to get you the bankruptcy relief to which you are entitled under article I, §8, cl. 4 of the U.S. Constitution, and mandated by God in Deut. 15: 1-2):
At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release of debts. And this is the form of the release: Every creditor who has lent anything to his neighbor shall release it; he shall not require it of his neighbor or his brother, because it is called the Lord’s release.
Image based on Flickr (Licensed) by Mackenzie Black