11/19/2014 – How to Protect Yourself From the “Epidemic” of Sleazy Debt Collectors (Money)

Unscrupulous debt collectors, some of whom pose as law enforcement and threaten arrests to collect payments, have “become something of an epidemic,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara. On Tuesday, Bharara announced that seven people who worked for an Atlanta-area company, Williams, Scott & Associates, were arrested for their “ruthlessly persistent” payment collecting methods.He said the workers threatened people with arrest if they didn’t pay the debt; falsely claimed to work for the Justice Department, the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI and sheriffs’ departments; sent people made up documents designed to look like the government had sanctioned them; and used bogus legal terminology, such as: “The statute of limitations on your civil legal rights has expired.” These unlawful methods netted the debt collection agency more than $4 million from 6,000 victims.

Read the full article at Money.