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FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of Dec... - 11/5/2010 7:42:56 PM   
pahunkboy


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FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of Deceased
 

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may change rules governing the collection industry to allow debt collectors to harass family members of a deceased loved one. I personally have several problems with FDCPA changes that would allow collectors to target families in such manner. Unless a family member co-signed or otherwise guaranteed a loan, credit card, etc. they are generally not responsible for a deceased family members debt. In effect the change in the Fair Debt Collection Practices act (FDCPA) to allow collection companies to hound and harass grieving families to collect a debt that could be handled in probate of the deceased’s estate. Greedy collectors don’t want to wait for estate probate as it takes a while to collect and many collection companies inflate the debt in order to turn a larger profit. In probate they may not be able to inflate the debt amount. As it stands the FDCPA doesn’t not allow debt collectors to contact friends or family and discuss a debt. However if the rules are changed families will be bombarded by collectors as if they were the debtor. Ethically, morally and legally this is a bad thing. Seems the Federal Trade Commission just doesn’t understand what consumer protection really means. I guess I should expect as much from a bloated, useless tax-payer funded government enforcement group. I personally believe that ACA International (debt industry trade group) has been lobbying congress and the FTC to allow the change. It boggles my mind that the FTC regulators would even consider such a change. The FTC should add a rule to not allow collectors to pursue families of the deceased.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act prohibits abusive and deceptive practices by third-party debt collectors, including contacts with unobligated family members, friends and neighbors for any purpose except to seek contact information for those who owe debts.  The FTC should strengthen protections for grieving families and friends, not open the door to debt collection efforts that often aim to exploit the vulnerability of the bereaved," Robert Hobbs, National Consumer Law Center
The debt collection industry is rife with greedy people that employ illegal tactics to collect debts. Collections companies have an opportunity to be paid through probate of the deceased estate so let them collect like everyone else. If you are a consumer that is being harassed by collectors because of a deceased family members debt and aren’t a co-signer or guarantor on an account tell the debt collectors to “get bent” and advise them the only way they will be paid is the estate probate. If they continue to harass you, it may that you have legal remedies in which to sue them for the harassment or abuse. I encourage consumer to contact the FTC and comment on why opening the FDCPA rules to allow deceased collections is a bad thing. You can comment on the upcoming proposed rule change until November 8th, 2010 at: https://ftcpublic.commentworks.com/ftc/deceaseddebtcollection/  
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RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/6/2010 2:47:18 AM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		Why do you think I paid probably close to a grand an hour for a real lawyer to handle my "probaate" ? I also paid around fifteen grand in debt service to make this work.

Any sheeple can be fooled into paying, fear sells. People want to keep their phone number, they don't want to hide nor do they want to (or know how to) play the game. It is simple once you understand it. It is all a money game, period. Abusive collection calls ? Have you heard me lately, well in the last twenty years ? They get nasty I get nastier.

"I need to pay this ?, OK where do I send the check ? You are registered to my "'account' ? OK now I know how to find you mufug, and now it is your fucking turn" There is an account, there is a paper trail back to them personally as much as they don't want you to know it. With a bit of moxie you can find out and give them a call from time to time. Fight fire with gasoline. They are legal persons, in the sense of the basic tenets of law, as such they can be found and held responsible for their antics. You can do it through the law, or up front in their face if you know what you're doing. I mean I can find a jail guard who took away my empty chip bag and cut his garden hose and garbage cans to shreds, because he has a paper trail, not I.

And people don't know the rules. Listen up, this is one thing to get through your head, when they want you to sign, you do not have to. If you didn't have to sign for them to do their dirty work they would never ask. Make any agreement with a creditor of any kind and you validate the debt, legally. Any asshole should know that from watching Judge Judy and shit. The facts are right there. Don't want to sign ? Tell them to stick the paper and the printer which produced it where it is sure not to get a sunburn. (where the sun don't shine)

I just went through all this type of shit and I just about busted a nut. With any luck, within a year I will be in pretty good shape. I might not get a job as an FBI agent, but I will have what I need. There is a certain way to deal with those people and I have been learning for over thirty years. Have you ever had your entire family actually BID for dependants ? (tax deductions). And that was back when we pa......... nevermind.

Logical assertions. Debts are bought and sold for example, to the point where it can be hard to know exactly who you owe. Well they don't know either, and that shit they pulled in Florida and a few other states is going to bite them in the ass. That'll be when the title insurance companies start getting together to recover certain damages they had to pay out. The information is supposed to be public, if it is not, in some cases it is null and void in statutory law. (equity law is pretty much the same now, details some other time, but if you remember it is all a money game you can win)

Three battles, processes, turns of events and I will be so free and clear it will be a shame. I ain't taking prisoners.

T

(in reply to pahunkboy)
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RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/6/2010 8:26:20 AM   
DesFIP


Posts: 25191
Joined: 11/25/2007
From: Apple County NY
Status: offline 		Changing the law so that the estate is responsible for debts incurred during the lifetime of the deceased is reasonable. However it needs to be done in a timely manner. I was one day from settling my mother's estate when I received a bill incurred over six months prior. I called up and yelled at them for waiting so long. Had they waited one more day the estate would have been paid out and the estate account closed.

_____________________________

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Cynical and proud of it!


(in reply to Termyn8or)
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RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/6/2010 9:44:05 AM   
hertz


Posts: 1315
Joined: 8/7/2010
Status: offline 		Is this simply about pursuing a debt from the deceased's estate, though? It sounds like the suggestion is that the debt collectors will be allowed to pursue the deceased's relatives in advance of probate. Now that would be wrong.

(in reply to DesFIP)
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RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/6/2010 10:00:21 AM   
thornhappy


Posts: 8596
Joined: 12/16/2006
Status: offline 		The second and third parts look like they protect the person being pursued by the collection agency.

(in reply to hertz)
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RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/6/2010 10:58:26 AM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		Maybe so, but if they didn't sign on the dotted line why should they need protection at all ?

T

(in reply to thornhappy)
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RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/7/2010 6:17:05 AM   
MercTech


Posts: 3706
Joined: 7/4/2006
Status: offline 		Ok, I went through probate on my mother's estate back in 2007.
I paid a lawyer to file papers with the court for probate.
I ran a newspaper notice for 90 days stating roughly "If you have any debts due from Mrs. XXX, diseased, contact YYYY, Attorney at Law now or forget it."

Probate went through without a hitch. Only one creditor contacted the lawyer and they were just idiots in their record keeping as they had been paid off and given a letter to close the account long before the probate was filed.

What is comes down to is that if you inherit from a diseased person, you inherit their debt as well. If there is nothing to inherit, the creditors are shit out of luck. And, there is no legal requirement to accept an inheritance so if the debts outweigh the assets, it is legal to let the court dispose of assets and pay creditors as able.

Stefan

< Message edited by MercTech -- 11/7/2010 6:20:05 AM >

(in reply to Termyn8or)
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RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/7/2010 9:40:04 AM   
sub4hire


Posts: 6775
Joined: 1/1/2004
Status: offline 		Currently there is no need to hire an attorney to do this for you. They already come after you..so changing the law is going to do what, exactly?

When my father died he had around 50,000 in debt..from mortgages to credit cards.

My aunt is a debt collector. She told me to write up a letter informing everyone he passed away, with a copy of his death certificate. To send it certified mail to each company. I did so, I probably got around a thousand letters in return attempting to set up payment programs for me. I ignored them all.

I followed my aunts advice. Only pay for whatever items I planned on keeping. So I paid off his mortgage. Started writing deceased on all envelopes and giving them back to the mailman.

Eventually I went to the PO and changed everything in his name to read return to sender address unknown.

It worked out quite well. My aunt did tell me if it had been my husband who had passed away I would have been on the hook to pay all bills. As we share everything. Since it was dad...nothing more than I wanted to pay.

(in reply to pahunkboy)
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RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/7/2010 9:57:30 AM   
slvemike4u


Posts: 17896
Joined: 1/15/2008
From: United States
Status: offline 		Some time back I read an article in the NY Times that dealt with efforts by debt collectors to collect on debt from surviving family members...where there was absolutely no obligation for those survivors to do so.In other words collectors were suggesting to the survivors that as a matter of honor or familial obligation these folks should choose to make good on their dead relatives debts.
Statistics showed that they were able to collect on about(IIRC) 30% of the outstanding debt...a figure pretty much in line with collection percentages of defaulted accounts from living obligated owers! Completley astounding...
I immediately called my son ans informed him that if after my passing he should ever pay any bill of mine solely from a sense of familial obligation......that I would haunt his stupid ass for the rest of his days.

_____________________________

If we want things to stay as they are,things will have to change...Tancredi from "the Leopard"

Forget Guns-----Ban the pools

Funny stuff....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNwFf991d-4


(in reply to sub4hire)
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RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/7/2010 1:38:03 PM   
Termyn8or


Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
Status: offline 		I heard they had 100 year mortgages in Japan, but not here lol.

Thirty percent success sounds about right. That's the sum of the people who will pay for honorable reasons and those stupid enough to think they have to pay. General rule of thumb though is that if you didn't sign you don't have to pay. That's what probate is for, to settle this all up (you might not have anything left, but....) .

Some people use it for personal gain of course, but that's all part of the game.

T

(in reply to slvemike4u)
Profile   Post #: 10
RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/7/2010 2:08:03 PM   
MercTech


Posts: 3706
Joined: 7/4/2006
Status: offline 		This is dependent on which state you live in as State Law varies. In Mississippi, if real estate is involved or value >$250,000 in other property, the probate must be cour adjudicated by an officer of the court. Translate that you need a lawyer. I found one that did it for $180.00 plus hourly if anything was contested. The requirement for the probate petition to be presented by an officer of the court is a holdover making small change work for brothers of the bar.

Stefan


quote:

ORIGINAL: sub4hire

Currently there is no need to hire an attorney to do this for you. They already come after you..so changing the law is going to do what, exactly?



(in reply to sub4hire)
Profile   Post #: 11
RE: FTC May Allow Debt Collectors To Target Families of... - 11/7/2010 4:45:50 PM   
MistressRage


Posts: 138
Joined: 1/1/2004
From: Upstate New York
Status: offline 		Wow, this is some messed up stuff!!!! As it is I get calls about one of My neighbors who apparently must owe some money. Thanks for posting this info!

_____________________________

Mistress Rage
~outRAGEous~

I don't always return to a thread. It's usually best to message your replies directly to me.

(in reply to pahunkboy)
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