Business Blog
Reader discretion advised
It’s unusual for an FTC court document to come with a warning label, but the allegations contained in a recent debt collection case against an outfit doing business as Rumson, Bolling & Associates aren’t for the faint of heart. According to the FTC, the defendants harassed debtors with abusive and profane language, including threats to harm their family members, kill their pets, and desecrate the bodies of their deceased loved ones. And that’s just for starters.
The complaint against individuals and companies affiliated with the California-based debt collection operation allege a host of other violations of the FTC Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. “Deadbeat,” “scumbag,” “piece of crap,” and “lowlife” are among the few printable epithets defendants hurled at debtors. According to the complaint, when one person allegedly owed money to a funeral home after her sons died within a week of each other, the defendants threatened to dig up their bodies and deposit them on her doorstep. In another instance, defendants allegedly threatened to shoot — and eat — a person’s dog.
In addition, the FTC charged that the defendants illegally revealed people’s debts to third parties, including employers, co-workers, neighbors, and relatives, and falsely threatened to sue them, have them arrested, seize their property, and garnish their wages.
But debtors weren’t the only ones put through the wringer. Using the slogan “no recovery, no fee,” the defendants promised small businesses and other potential clients that they’d collect debts on a contingency basis, charging a fee only when they recovered money. But in many cases, said the FTC, the defendants collected from debtors on a client’s behalf and then simply pocketed the cash. In other instances, the defendants asked clients for money upfront purportedly for legal expenses to file a lawsuit that would “guarantee” the successful collection of the debt. Many small businesses paid the fees, but the defendants allegedly failed to file the promised lawsuits and the clients never received money in satisfaction of the debt.
A federal judge in California has entered a preliminary injunction and asset freeze. A court-appointed receiver is in place and the defendants’ debt collection operations have been halted.
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
The purpose of this blog and its comments section is to inform readers about Federal Trade Commission activity, and share information to help them avoid, report, and recover from fraud, scams, and bad business practices. Your thoughts, ideas, and concerns are welcome, and we encourage comments. But keep in mind, this is a moderated blog. We review all comments before they are posted, and we won’t post comments that don’t comply with our commenting policy. We expect commenters to treat each other and the blog writers with respect.
We don't edit comments to remove objectionable content, so please ensure that your comment contains none of the above. The comments posted on this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of other people, please do not include personal information. Opinions in comments that appear in this blog belong to the individuals who expressed them. They do not belong to or represent views of the Federal Trade Commission.