Brent H. on May 30th, 2009

American Credit Services, a payday loan collection scam, has come to my attention and I’d like to alert readers to the outline of how these fraudsters work.
Basically, the “company” is calling people and telling them they owe money on a payday loan. Some of the common characteristics of these fake collection calls are:

Invariably the [...]

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Brent H. on March 27th, 2009

Washington State Governor Gregoire signed a new law today that restricts check cashers’ and payday lenders’ ability to collect on consumer debts. Payday Loans have gotten a lot of attention in the Washington Legislature this month, but this bill is very interesting in its definition of “harassment.”
This bill has some relatively benign elements, such [...]

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Brent H. on March 25th, 2009

West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw is at it again… in a good way. McGraw has been on a mission to shut down payday lenders and their collection agencies that operate in his state. McGraw’s office began their crackdown on the internet payday lending industry in 2005.
Since then, McGraw’s office has successfully concluded [...]

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While the IRS has stopped working with private collectors, many local District Attorney’s offices have not. A company called American Corrective Counseling Services provides for-profit services to local District Attorney’s offices, including Los Angeles County. The company sends out letters on District Attorney’s letterhead threatening prosecution and jail time for writing bad checks, [...]

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Brent H. on March 11th, 2009

In a very disturbing case, the 7th Circuit has ruled in favor of debt buyers by upholding a lower court decision that MCM Capital Group did not violate the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA).   In Wahl vs. Midland Credit Management, the court decided that by referencing the total amount of debt purchased as [...]

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