Debt collector used sex threats, harassment

[garbon]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090818/ap_on_re_us/us_cuomo_debt_collectors

New York's attorney general said Tuesday he is trying to shut down a debt collector whose employees used outrageous tactics in several states, such as threatening to sexually attack one debtor's daughter, berating people as drunks and deadbeats, and bullying others with threats of arrest.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced the lawsuit against the Benning-Smith Group for what he claims are more than 1,000 violations of state and federal law in New York alone. He said his staff has also spoken to people from Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas who claim they were victims.

Cuomo said he is chasing more than 850 complaints and is suing at least 13 debt collection companies with separate names operated under the Benning-Smith Group.

"They did everything they could to demean and humiliate their targets, stooping so low as to sexually harass and verbally abuse individuals nationwide," Cuomo said.

In an answering machine tape that Cuomo provided to The Associated Press, an unidentified collection agent told a New York grandmother of seven in 2006: "You are totally ghetto. ... Learn English; get an education instead of just sitting on your fat derriere all day long."

The caller then insulted her pronunciation of "plan" and called her an "uneducated reject. ... Get a real job, get an education and learn to take care of your responsibility like a grown adult would."

The call was over a $182 debt that the woman, 50-year-old Dorothy Gilbert, of Rochester, had paid more than a year before.

"I know I didn't sleep for a couple of nights," Gilbert told the AP on Tuesday. "What if it was a person who couldn't take that kind of talk? Or someone with a bad heart or mentally imbalanced or very depressed? Then you could be looking at murder."

Gilbert said she still keeps the receipt for the paid debt under her mattress, just in case.

Cuomo spokesman Richard Bamberger said the office hopes to shut down the operation so it can determine how many states the company operated in. Cuomo is working with the Federal Trade Commission and Better Business Bureau, which also received complaints, he said.

One collector repeated the name of a consumer's daughter and described sexual attacks he would commit against her unless a debt was paid, Cuomo said. Other collectors called consumers drunks, deadbeats and in one case a low-life piece of trash; one allegedly told a woman he would pay the debt himself if the consumer and her husband would have sex with him, the attorney general said.

An attorney for the Benning-Smith Group didn't respond to a request for comment. The company operators didn't respond to requests for comment left at one of the companies, Brady & Caruso in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst.

In June, Cuomo obtained a court order shutting down the fraudulent activities of a Buffalo-based collection racket and initiated criminal charges against the owner of that operation.

He has shut down two other debt-collection agencies and is suing two others for collection practices and what he said were unkept promises in debt-repayment plans.

Cuomo said the Benning-Smith Group operates as Abrams, Burke & Associates; Benning and Smith Acquisitions; Brady and Caruso; DebtPayments.com; Fredericks, Goldstein & Zoe; Graham, Noble & Associates Bookkeeping; Graham, Noble & Associates LLC; Graham, Beagle & Associates LLC; Kingman, Cole and Associates LCC; Marshall and Ziolkowski Enterprise LLC; Marshall Ziolkowski Acquisitions LLC; Lansky, Goldstein, Zoe; OLS Payment Services; and University Debt Collection.

She didn't sleep for several nights because someone said mean things to her?

But yeah, debt collectors = scum.

[The Brain]

[Mono] I don't get what the problem is. Doesn't every country use mob methods? [/Mono]

[Caliga]

Debt collectors ARE scum, but then again most of the people they're trying to chase down are thieves, so I don't have a hell of a lot of sympathy.

[Iormlund]

I love the "get a real job" line.

[derspiess]

Collectors are an interesting personality type.  I worked with a couple people who had come up through the collections area when I worked at First USA/Bank One (now Chase) and you could not trust anything they said.  You were better off starting with the assumption that they were out to screw you over at any moment.

Having said all that, Cuomo's crusade smells like a populist witch hunt.

[MadImmortalMan]

Yeah, but threatening people's kids is way over the line. Calling them deadbeats, meh.

[Ed Anger]

I despise debt collectors. Especially when they pull this shit:

The call was over a $182 debt that the woman, 50-year-old Dorothy Gilbert, of Rochester, had paid more than a year before.

Anal rape is too good for them.

[garbon]

AT&T has been calling my home phone everyday now, while I'm at work. When I looked up the number online it told me it was a bill collector for AT&T but I've paid all my bills on time.   Doesn't bother me much though as I've never been at home.

[Malthus]

... one allegedly told a woman he would pay the debt himself if the consumer and her husband would have sex with him, the attorney general said.

I gotta admit, that's an odd way to harrass someone. 

[garbon]

I gotta admit, that's an odd way to harrass someone. 

At first I just read that as "he would pay the debt himself if her husband would have sex with him."

[jimmy olsen]

There's a story on this on CBS right now.

[Caliga]

AT&T has been calling my home phone everyday now, while I'm at work. When I looked up the number online it told me it was a bill collector for AT&T but I've paid all my bills on time.   Doesn't bother me much though as I've never been at home.

I actually get nonstop calls on my work Blackberry from some debt collection service, looking for some deadbeat bitch.  I've concluded there's not much I can do to resolve it.  I wish I was a chick though, because in that case I could store my Blackberry in my vagina and then at least the collectors would be providing me with a service. 

[Monoriu]

Your debt collectors are pussys when compared with ours.  Yours talk; ours actually carry out their threats. 

[jimmy olsen]

Your debt collectors are pussys when compared with ours.  Yours talk; ours actually carry out their threats.

Since they only talk they can get away with it for a while before the government comes after them. If they actually tried anything the government would come down on them like a ton of bricks immediately, and that's not even taking into consideration those collectors that would be assaulted or shot down by their victims.