Collectively Americans are carrying seriously delinquent debt to the tune of over 436 billion dollars. This debt is made up of everything from credit card debt to medical bills. Often people find themselves underwater in debt for reasons beyond their control, such as tragic accidents, life-threatening illness, and job loss. There is an entire industry looking to profit from this misfortune, and its leaders are not afraid to break the law in order to line their pockets.
There is a shocking lack of regulation for who can start a debt buying company, and even less effort put into verifying the debt being sold is actually legitimate. All too often, the debt the collectors claim you owe has expired or was never yours to begin with. In a recent broadcast by John Oliver on his show, Last Week Tonight, he examines the behaviors and mentality of many of these debt buying agencies and the industry in which they reside.
Oliver exposed the phenomenon known as “zombie debt,” where debt collection companies attempt to collect satisfied, forgiven, expired or even nonexistent debt from individuals. He even goes so far as to create his own “debt collection agency” in order to confirm just how easy it is for an ordinary person to gain access to hundreds of thousands of individuals personal information and the ability to harass and bully their past debt out of them.
If you or someone you know has fallen victim to one of these debt collection companies, if you think that the practices of your debt collector are illegal, or if you have satisfied or expired debt that someone is trying to collect from you, contact Potter Handy, LLP for a free case evaluation. Potter Handy does not charge their client unless we win.