Debt Collection Factory Preyed on Broke Americans: Lawsuit.(Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)

[Stuart G]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/15/debt-collection-agency-lawsuit_n_5585264.html?ir=Business

A federal watchdog is suing a collection agency that allegedly operated like a "factory" churning out lawsuits against cash-strapped borrowers, often using misleading, deceptive and illegal practices.

The suit is the latest effort by regulators to crack down on debt collection abuse. The billion-dollar industry has ballooned in size over the past two decades and is under fire for filing wrongful lawsuits against vulnerable borrowers.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced on Monday that it had sued Frederick J. Hanna & Associates, a Georgia-based law firm that sues consumers for old, outstanding debts owed to banks, debt buyers and credit card companies.

The complaint against Hanna & Associates alleges that the firm operated as a lawsuit "factory," cranking out more than 350,000 suits in Georgia alone since 2009. What's more, the company operates with a skeleton staff of eight to 16 lawyers who merely put their signature on lawsuits, while the bulk of the work at the firm is performed by "automated processes" and non-attorney staff, according to the CFPB complaint. In 2009 and 2010, the suit claims, a single lawyer at the company signed off on about 138,000 lawsuits, an average of about 1,300 a week.
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If I remember correctly (ok to correct me, if I am wrong) this agency was proposed and championed by Elizabeth Warren. This agency is going after some real crooks. I hope it gets them..

[Igel]

1. There's a lot of bad debt out there.

They should make sure they get the right person and target that person's resources.

Otherwise the problem is with the law. I get frequent calls from creditors trying to nail the previous owner of my phone number for a lot of bad debt.

One place threatening legal action is from GA. I wonder if it's this place. Might be.

Nonetheless, if they targeted *his* property, that would be fine. The man ran up debts. A lot of them. Perhaps he should have declared bankruptcy, but instead he just skipped out on the debt. So now they're insistently trying to notify me at his old number, and the problem is they really don't believe me when I say I'm not him. Why? Because so many dead-beats also lie through their teeth. If he did have his old number, the credit collection folk would get the exact same response: "I'm not him and don't know him."

Personally, I hope they find him and collect at this point. (And I alternate between not knowing a word of English when creditors call and saying that he died last week. Call originates East of the Mississippi and I only speak Russian or Czech; west of the Mississippi and the deadbeat's dead.)

I've also gotten all sorts of credit-collection stuff not for the person who had my phone number before me, but for a man and a family (perhaps his family, I don't know) who shared my last name and lived in the same apt. complex. They tracked down my new address when I moved, they found out my phone number. Still get calls for him and them from time to time. And I keep a lookout for anybody who tries to think that my property is somehow their property.

Bankruptcy is the way to go for these dorks. But that would infringe on their right to get credit and rack up more debt.

[freshwest]

2. The GOP has done all they could to stop this agency. From holding up Warren's apppointment by PBO.

Then they refused to fund and are trying to do so again:

House Passes Spending Bill Slashing Funding For Wall Street Oversight

to Galraedia:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014847881

They've threatened to let the government run out of funds at the end of August if it's vetoed. That means another shutdown and worse.

The GOP has to do it for their big sponsors.

Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:

“...We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets...”

“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”

“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/koch-brothers

Interesting stuff here too:

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a7980koch

to kpete:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024806298

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

3. The current Libertarian Party platform is at

https://www.lp.org/platform It has become so vague as to be essentially meaningless. I believe that they dropped a lot of the specifics because people were saying, "Are you crazy?"

An example: The 2004 platform said

The individual's right to privacy, property, and right to speak or not to speak should not be infringed by the government. The government should not use electronic or other means of covert surveillance of an individual's actions or private property without the consent of the owner or occupant. Correspondence, bank and other financial transactions and records, doctors' and lawyers' communications, employment records, and the like should not be open to review by government without the consent of all parties involved in those actions.

It is no longer in the Libertarian Party platform, undoubtedly because someone said something along the lines of, "I hope you realize that you are calling for criminal suspects to have a veto over all wiretaps and warrants for document searches. We say that we oppose fraud, but it's hard to get people to believe that if we are calling for tying the hands of those trying to prove fraud."

Another current libertarian platform is the Platform of the New Jersey Libertarian Party. I commented on it at http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024324819 -- it is filled with extremely silly calls for abolition of this, that and the other thing. In that thread, I had a post about a concept obviously unknown to libertarians, called "Chesterton's fence". The English writer G. K. Chesterton wrote that no one should be allowed to tear down a fence without first showing that they know why it was put up. Libertarians routinely call for abolition of various government agencies and programs, clearly without knowing why these agencies and programs came out in the first place.

For example, calls for abolition of the Securities Exchange Commission would require an explanation of why it was established -- an accurate explanation, not just hand-waving -- and a meaningful response of how to handle the problems it was set up to deal with. I picked the SEC because some time ago, I came across a libertarian calling for its abolition. I asked him, "And replace it with what?" He replied that the stockholders should be able to act. I said that I owned a few shares in one corporation, but if I were to go to its headquarters and demand to see the books, I would undoubtedly get no further than the front desk in the lobby. If, on the other hand, I were from the SEC and made the same demand, I would get considerably further. I pointed out that the first inklings that something was wrong at Enron was a story in the Wall Street Journal, but it wasn't until the SEC came in and said, "Bend over and spread 'em" that the horrible details started coming out. I also said that if he were talking about stockholder suits, he clearly has never dealt with the civil courts. (I was once cheated out of $2000 by a contractor, and it took me three years to get my money back.)

I have maintained for years that libertarianism requires ignorance of history, economics, politics and the real world in general. I have seen nothing to make me modify that belief in the slightest.