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Friday, May 07, 2010

Law - Still more on "Learning How to Fight the Debt Collector"

Updating earlier ILB entries, Willliam Glaberson of the NY Times has a story today headed "New York Judges Resist Claims by Debt Collectors." Some quotes:

As New Yorkers have tumbled into credit-card debt during the Great Recession, bill collectors have turned to the courts to get what they say is due, and the courts have in turn issued hundreds of thousands of orders against residents. Some consumer groups argue that by doing so, the courts have become little more than an arm of the debt-collection industry.

Now, a few New York judges are suggesting that they agree, at least in part, with the consumer groups. They have fumed at debt collectors and their lawyers, scolding them for excessive interest like 30 percent a year and berating for them for false statements and abusive practices.

Some of the rulings have even been sarcastic or incredulous. In December, a Staten Island judge said debt collectors seemed to think their lawsuits were taking place in a legal Land of Oz, where everyone was supposed to follow anticonsumer rules invented by some unseen debt-collection Wizard.

Last month, a Manhattan appeals court threw out a credit-card case, saying a debt collection company had sued the wrong person but pursued the case anyway. * * *

Debt-buyer businesses purchase lists of names and amounts supposedly due — for pennies on the dollar — from credit-card companies and sometimes have no real evidence about who they are suing or why.

They then file tens of thousands of suits, often with little to back up their claims. A Nassau County judge said this winter, for example, that one of New York City’s high-volume debt-collection law firms, which has close ties to a debt-buying company, did not provide “a scintilla of evidence” that there was a debt at all in a case against a Long Island woman. * * *

Privately, some judges say they are embarrassed that in many New York courts, debt-collection lawyers have grown so comfortable that they give the impression they are in charge of the proceedings and need not prove their claims with strong evidence.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 7, 2010 12:53 PM
Posted to General Law Related