letter happy coolection agency

Date: Sat, 05/23/2009 - 08:15

Submitted by anonymous
on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 08:15

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Total Replies: 2

collection agency sent my personal inf(leaese) to my former e mployer and addressed to my former employers atty who i had mentioned i was receiving advice in one of my letters. i have sent 4 letters and made 2 phone calls for proof of this apartment debt or deletion within 30 days for 16 months. all of the sudden i get a call from an employer where i worked 7 months ago because they received my personal info addressed to an atty that i told the agency i was getting advice, but never retained or authorized info to be sent. this agency had my address?

If you indicated you were getting advice from an attorney, the c

If you indicated you were getting advice from an attorney, the collection agency has a duty to contact that attorney and not speak to you about it as you may be represented. Until you AND the attorney indicate that they have not been retained and are not your attorney in this matter, they are obligated to speak with the attorney. Your mistake was doing it halfway. Either retain the attorney to represent you or don't tell them you are speaking to an attorney.

lrhall41

Submitted by on Sat, 05/23/2009 - 18:38

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first, guest is half-right. You should never tell them that you

first, guest is half-right. You should never tell them that youre dealing with an attorney, especially not naming a specific one, unless you officially are. That means you have one on retainer that has agreed to represent you. If you dont have that, then you arent represented by counsel, plain and simple.

But on the other hand, if you did not specifically say that this attorney represented you, then they had no business sending them anything. Unfortunately, you would have a hard time proving anything was done with a genuine bad intention....because you told the CA that you had gotten advice from this lawyer they can easily argue that they thought in good faith that you had secured the lawyer's services to represent you in this matter. Here's a question--have they sent you letters or called you since the time you told them that you spoke to this lawyer? They are specifically not allowed to do so according to federal law(the FDCPA) unless they tried to contact the attorney and couldnt get any response, or if they could not ascertain who the attorney was. So, if they kept contacting you in any manner during that same time, you have them violating the law right there. Think about it--it would be pretty hard for them to claim "hey, we really thought that he had hired this attorney" if they were still contacting you at that same time. Likewise, if that is the case, where they were contacting you still at the same time, I would argue the case that it shows they didnt genuinely think you had secured counsel--and that would constitute another FDCPa violation, namely unauthorized third-party disclosure.

lrhall41

Submitted by skydivr7673 on Sun, 05/24/2009 - 18:49

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