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Houston Debt Collection Agency Shut Down

Michael Agruss

Written and Reviewed by Michael Agruss

  • Managing Partner and Personal Injury Lawyer at Mike Agruss Law.
  • Over 20 years of experience in Personal Injury.
  • Over 8000+ consumer rights cases settled.
  • Graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law: Juris Doctor, 2004.

Houston Debt Collection Agency Shut Down

In January 16th of this year, a U.S. district court shut down a Houston-based debt collection operation, at the request of the Federal Trade Commission. The collection agency, Goldman Schwartz Inc., employed insults, lies, and false threats to collect on payday loans. Among their bald-faced lies: telling a Virginia woman that she’d be arrested, imprisoned for three years, and lose her disability payments, if she didn’t pay a $980 debt; telling people their children would be taken into government custody; and falsely claiming to work with local sheriff’s offices.Goldman Schwartz and its three affiliated companies also disclosed people’s debts to their family members and military superiors and collected made-up late fees and attorneys’ fees. All of these actions are illegal under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The company, which is owned and managed by three individuals, collected debts for many national payday loan companies—Ace Cash Express, Advance America, Allied Cash Advance, Checkmate, First Cash Advance, MoneyMart—and apparently also falsely represented itself as a law firm.Goldman Schwartz’s owner, Gerald Wright, passed himself off as an attorney named Barry Schwartz. “Schwartz” and his two associates, Starlette Foster and Jennifer Zamora, continuously violated the FDCPA when they harassed and abused people with obscene or profane language, called people repeatedly and continuously, and called late at night and early in the morning. The company also failed to tell people their rights to dispute their debts, have them verified, or obtain the names of the original creditors.The Southern District of Texas Court froze the collection agency’s assets, banned the three defendants from engaging in debt collection, and appointed a receiver to take control of the business, while the FTC proceeds with its case. At a hearing on January 28, 2013, the court set the injunction and froze the businesses’ assets.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. 

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