Abusive And Illegal Debt Collection Practice Case

Another case of abusive and illegal debt collection practices has surfaced, this time in Orlando, Florida. On February 28, 2012, Florida’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, announced several legal actions against a group of debt collectors who pretended to be government agents. State investigators, working with Orlando police, have frozen the assets of Vanderbilt & Associates, LLC, Buchanan Capital Management, LLC, and their owner; a temporary injunction was also issued against the groups. Officials reported that the collectors “would call consumers and claim to be law enforcement officials, government agents, process servers or county clerk’s office employees to intimidate or scare consumers into paying debts.” In a lot of these cases, the debts were fraudulent or had already been paid; pursuing them violates Florida’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices and Consumer Collection Practices acts (and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a federal statute). Bondi continued, “We will do everything within our power to protect Floridians from unlawful debt collection practices that often employ scare tactics to manipulate individuals.”Under the injunction, Vanderbilt & Associates and Buchanan Capital Management are barred from “engaging in unlawful debt collection schemes,” and “from using any unfair or deceptive practices in the collection of consumer debts. Paul Rooney, Chief of the Orlando Police Department, said his office “will relentlessly investigate these crimes and work together with other agencies… to ensure that those responsible are held accountable.”An injunction obtained against the companies bars them from If a collection agency has harassed you, you may be entitled to money damages up to $1,000.00, based on the FDCPA, which has been around for almost 35 years. The FDCPA is a federal law that applies to every state. In other words, everyone is protected by the FDCPA. The FDCPA is essentially a laundry list of what debt collectors can and cannot do while collecting a debt, as well as things debt collectors must do while collecting a debt. Plus, the FDCPA has a fee-shift provision. This means the collection agency pays your attorney’s fees and costs. Founding attorney, Michael Agruss, has settled over 1,500 debt collection harassment cases. We want to help you, too.