A few years ago, Encore Capital, the parent of debt buyer Midland Funding, LLC started spreading money around overseas, mostly notably with the acquisition of Cabot, a debt-buyer in the United Kingdom. It’s most recent quarterly call with investors (transcript available here, signup required) paints an interesting picture of its ever-expanding global reach. The call… Read More »Encore Capital: Growing Foreign Profits
Like Encore, debt-buyer Portfolio Recovery Associates recently held its quarterly call with investors (transcript available here, signup required). Like Encore, Portfolio emphasized its growth outside the United States, in Europe and South America. Portfolio appears to be some way behind Encore in this expansion, although it does have some very far flung outposts – as… Read More »Portfolio Recovery Associates (“PRA”) Is Now a Global Debt Collector
Texas-based debt collector Commercial Recovery Systems, Inc, (CRS) and two of its managers have been sued by the Federal Trade Commission for violating debt collection law. CRS and its President and Vice President are accused of lying to consumers in an attempt to collect debts. Collectors working at CRS are alleged to have: The FTC… Read More »Debt Collector Commercial Recovery Systems (CRS”) Sued By FTC For Lying To Consumers
In Junk Justice, I wrote about statistical outcomes of lawsuits filed by large debt buyers in Maryland. Based on my study, the years 2009-2011 had a combined total of over 121,000 cases filed by the sample group of large debt buyers in the District Court of Maryland. But now, the picture is different. We see a consolidation in the industry, and a drop in the number of filings.
Read More »Junk Justice Update: Maryland Debt Buyer Filings in 2012-2013Barry Stimpson, like so many other Americans, was sued by Midland Funding, LLC. Midland claimed that it had bought a debt Stimpson owed to Capital One. Midland tried to prove that Stimpson owned it money with three affidavits. The District Court of Canyon County, Idaho, found that these affidavits were insufficient. The court’s decision merits reading for its clear and full analysis of the law of evidence as applied to debt buyer affidavits.
In June 2015, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued several consent orders dealing with misconduct by large banks. Two were new, against Bank of American and Wells Fargo for newly discovered misconduct. The remainder dealt with the failure by large banks, including Wells Fargo to abide by the terms of existing Consent… Read More »OCC Consent Orders With Bank of America, Wells Fargo, HSBC and Other Banks on Debt Collection, Foreclosure & Robosigning
Ashlee Kieler at Consumerist writes about the dilemma of being forced to pay a debt that is not owed:
Read More »Dispute Debt Collection? Consumers Trapped Into Paying Debts They Don’t OweImagine receiving a phone call that 25% of your wages are going to be garnished because of a credit card account opened 14 years earlier that was never paid off. Making things worse, you know you didn’t have a credit card from the bank in question at that time, so it can’t possibly be your debt. This should be an easily remedied error, but not if a court has already granted a default judgment against you, making you responsible for paying back money that you didn’t owe and didn’t find out about until it was too late.
