Under a settlement with the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, NCO Financial Systems, the world's largest debt collector, has agreed to validate debts BEFORE they attempt to collect them from innocent consumers. What a Concept!
The State of Texas claims that among complaints filed with their office, consumers say that NCO employees made unlawful harassing and threatening phone calls and oftentimes using profanity to get them to pay up.
Investigators also discovered that some of the debts that NCO demanded payment on belonged to people with different middle initials or Social Security numbers.
To settle with the State of Texas NCO agreed to spend $300,000 over three years to monitor its practices and additionally pay $150,000 into a three-year restitution fund to compensate Texans harmed by its acts.
With money tight and people out of work, the last thing they anyone needs is to be harassed and hounded by aggressive, pompous, foul-mouthed debt collectors who believe they are above the laws. Will NCO live up to their promises to police themselves?
Promises to adhere to consumer protection laws are not new to NCO though...
Upon Settling with the State of Pennsylvania, NCO promised to pay $300,000, but specifically denied that they had engaged in unlawful or inappropriate business practices. The agreement also required "NCO to comply with consumer protection laws and to maintain certain policies and procedures designed to facilitate and monitor its ongoing compliance".
And then of course there was this settlement: NCO Group to Pay Largest FCRA Civil Penalty to Date
One of the nation's largest debt-collection firms will pay $1.5 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by reporting inaccurate information about consumer accounts to credit bureaus. The civil penalty against Pennsylvania-based NCO Group, Inc. is the largest civil penalty ever obtained in a FCRA case. MORE
Know your rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If you are contacted by a debt collector there are laws designed to protect you from being harassed or intimidated over a debt -whether or not you actually owe it!
See earlier blogs here:
The Importance of Knowing your Rights ...
The State of Texas claims that among complaints filed with their office, consumers say that NCO employees made unlawful harassing and threatening phone calls and oftentimes using profanity to get them to pay up.
Investigators also discovered that some of the debts that NCO demanded payment on belonged to people with different middle initials or Social Security numbers.
To settle with the State of Texas NCO agreed to spend $300,000 over three years to monitor its practices and additionally pay $150,000 into a three-year restitution fund to compensate Texans harmed by its acts.
With money tight and people out of work, the last thing they anyone needs is to be harassed and hounded by aggressive, pompous, foul-mouthed debt collectors who believe they are above the laws. Will NCO live up to their promises to police themselves?
Promises to adhere to consumer protection laws are not new to NCO though...
Upon Settling with the State of Pennsylvania, NCO promised to pay $300,000, but specifically denied that they had engaged in unlawful or inappropriate business practices. The agreement also required "NCO to comply with consumer protection laws and to maintain certain policies and procedures designed to facilitate and monitor its ongoing compliance".
And then of course there was this settlement: NCO Group to Pay Largest FCRA Civil Penalty to Date
One of the nation's largest debt-collection firms will pay $1.5 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by reporting inaccurate information about consumer accounts to credit bureaus. The civil penalty against Pennsylvania-based NCO Group, Inc. is the largest civil penalty ever obtained in a FCRA case. MORE
Know your rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If you are contacted by a debt collector there are laws designed to protect you from being harassed or intimidated over a debt -whether or not you actually owe it!
See earlier blogs here:
The Importance of Knowing your Rights ...
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