Do you think that if you don’t have any past due bills that you won’t have to deal with abusive debt collectors? Think again. Walter Robinson and Beth Healy of the Boston Globe are back this morning, following up on their terrific four-part series on debt collection. The Globe has more stories about how debtor collectors harass people, but this story should tip over everyone’s cereal bowls. It is about how collectors pound — and keep pounding — on the wrong people. Are you next?
Debt collection is the new Wild West — shoot first and don’t ask any question — ever. The stories in the Globe are about trying to collect debts from people who don’t own them — mistaken identity, trying to collect from family members, or just plain old who-knows-how-the-mistake-made claims. The fact that these people don’t owe the debts doesn’t deter the debt collectors — they just keep coming.
Each person who gets these calls is on their own. As a lawyer, I could figure out some responses, but the bottom line is pretty much the same. These people who paid every bill in their lives on time and in full are going to spend hours of anguish, dealing with ugly threats and harassing calls, writing letters, sending documents, making calls — all with no guarantee of success.
A handful will go to lawyers. A few will get someone who cares at the state Attorney General’s office or send a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission. One in a million will get picked up in a Boston Globe story. But the best outcome that most of these people can hope for is that if they spend a lot of time and effort, the bad stuff might stop. That’s a heck of deal for people who have been harassed because of someone else’s mistake.
The debt collectors know that most people can’t figure out any effective remedy. That’s why they keep on calling. And, according to the stories in the article, if the company finally decides it can’t collect anything from someone who says you’ve got the wrong guy, it bundles up that person’s name with thousands of others and sells it to another debt collector to start the game over again.
In the debates over the proper role for government, isn’t this one a no-brainer? Why isn’t there a government agency given a working budget and some real teeth, putting out a toll-free number to take complaints and intervening in every one of these cases?
This isn’t about protection for deadbeats or even for people down on their luck. We all have a stake in putting some meaningful rules in place.
