FTC Settlement is Largest Ever for a Debt Collection Agency

West Asset Management has agreed to pay $2.8 million, the largest civil penalty ever won by the FTC in a debt collection case, to settle charges that it violated the FDCPA when collecting debt from consumers.

West Asset Management employs over 1,500 collectors and manages collections on over 20 million delinquent accounts. The FTC alleged that West Asset Management, Inc. violated the FTC Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act when collecting debts from consumers. It would be easy to simply dismiss this as an example of a bad collection agency, but this is a major collection agency that is part of all the major trade organizations and the Federal Trade Commission continues to report more complaints about debt collectors than any other single industry.

Here are some of the FTC’s complaints against West Asset Management, all of which violated federal law:

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