Collection Agency Harassment: What the Debt Collector Doesn't Want You to Know [Paperback]

Richard L. DiMaggio (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2002

Teaches consumers and their lawyers how to fight the debt collector! Author is a consumer protection attorney who has been suing the debt collector for over a decade. Learn their secrets. Learn their tricks. Learn how to sue them. Complete with sample complaints and End Notes.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Getting e-v-e-n

"Local Author Hits Home Run with Insider Look at Debt Collectors". -- Troy Record, April 23, 2002

From the Author

I am not surprised that the collection industry has attempted to sabatoge this book with single star ratings and negative reviews. One debt collector has even advised you to "download a copy of the law for free". In fact, the collection industry is very much against this book because it teaches the you, the consumer, how much control you really have. You can sue a debt collector. How frightening is this to them?!

What the collector doesn't want you to know is that you can sue the debt collector for some very technical violations of the law. That while the law is bland, it is the way the law has been intrepreted to give you power and the right to sue. You will not get this legal interpretation anywhere else, and it is not in the law you download--that is why the debt collectors are pointing you in the wrong direction.

If a debt collector calls you a single time after you tell them not to, you can sue this debt collector. If the debt collector threatens "further action" and doesn't sue you, you can sue the debt collector. If the debt collector demands payment in 7 days (or any number fewer than 30), yet gives you 30 days to dispute the debt, you can sue the debt collector. This list goes on and on. Sure you can sue for abuse, but you can sue for other reasons also.

Are you going to turn to a credit counselling center for help? They won't tell you they are staffed and financed by bank personnel--anything to keep you ignorant of your rights.

The debt collector uses a desk name, so you don't know who they are.

This is a multi-billion dollar business that has never, ever been exposed. Most of them have failed in their chosen professions, and have taken up harassing people for money.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Consumer Press (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971711909
• ISBN-13: 978-0971711907
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,255,713 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why are debt collectors trying to destroy this book?, June 10, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Collection Agency Harassment: What the Debt Collector Doesn't Want You to Know (Paperback)

I have to laugh when reading these reviews: This book gets 5 stars from consumers, yet it appears several debt collectors wrote reviews (they probably didn't even read the book) and give it a star or two. Gee, I wonder what is happening?

Not one review by any debt collector actually goes to the substance of the book: That debt collectors have laws they have to follow. When those laws are broken--and this happens frequently--you, the cosumer, can sue the debt collector. There is no reason to be afraid, no reason to screen your phone calls. We, as consumers, have tons of rights against debt collectors, many of them we don't even know. This books tells us what those rights are-nothing more, nothing less.The author does not say all debt collectors are bad. What he says, in plain, easy to read language, is that debt collectors cannot abuse and harass consumers, and he gives us exact cases that explain what the law is. There are only a handful of books out there on this subject. Debt collection is largely a "dark" industry and has never been exposed. And the debt collectors just can't stand the fact that someone finally exposed them and their cheap bag of tricks.

Consumers have rights they don't even know about, and the debt collection industry simply doesn't want us to know what those rights are. Debt collectors use desk names, caller id, talk to our neighbors, threaten to sue us. Much of this is illegal.

Why are debt collectors so afraid of this book?

My prediction: some "consumer" will give it an iffy review. The
reviews right now are 5 star consumer based, 1 star by the debt collectors. Gee, I wonder how much farther the collectors will go.

The word is out about you, debt collectors. I know it makes you burn. You're not all bad, so you say--but why are you so afraid of a book that simply tells the consumers what their rights are?
What are you trying to hide? As members of our wonderful open society, do you not want your fellow citizens to be fully informed on laws? Or do you break those laws so often, exposure could really, really hurt you?

You "cross the line" all the time, and many consumers don't even know when you do. When you cross the line, for example, use vile language, you can get sued. That's right--a consumer can go to the National Consumer Law Center in Boston, find a lawyer that makes a living suing debt collectors, and sue--but isn't this what you do? Don't you make a living suing people--people who have gone through a divorce, gotten ill, lost a job?

Please. It's about time you face your responsibility.

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let the Devil sort 'em out!, November 1, 2002

By 

Steven Cain (Temporal Quantum Pocket) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collection Agency Harassment: What the Debt Collector Doesn't Want You to Know (Paperback)

While "kill 'em all" may be an extreme reaction, this book offers a number of highly satisfying solutions to the problem of persecution by the goose-stepping thugs of the world of debt collection.

This book, along with Dover and Donovan's Back Off! empowers the reader with a vast quantity of information so that a victim may make informed decisions in dealing with their debt situation.

While the finer points of the Law apply to the American Justice System, the principles may be applied in virtually any democracy. One of the most useful things about this book is that it explains the structure of the organizations and the PSYCHOLOGY of debt collection. Knowing your enemy is 90% of the battle.

I would like to expand on the psychological aspects of the debt collection process. In my own experience, in which I was being hounded by a Canadian-based collection agency (some years ago), I noticed that they often use female collectors. This, plus the TONE OF VOICE used by these women is the key to the darker side of collection practices.

All people usually subconsciously associate women with nurturing and the Mother figure. By the female debt collectors using a Standard Harsh Callous Unfeeling Cruel Debt Collector Tone Of Voice, they are deliberately trying to trigger a fear and panic response in their victims. This parallels the experiments in which female monkeys have had their facial nerves severed so that they cannot show emotion via facial expression, which causes extreme distress and panic in their babies.

Debt collection, as it is usually practiced, is one of the most disgusting and utterly cruel practices in Western society. Many people have literally been driven to suicide by these monsters. Others have simply given up and declared bankruptcy, although as we see, this does not necessarily end the harassment. More than a few bailiffs have been shot dead by desperate debtors, and it is surely only a matter of time before somebody adopts a Tim McVeigh solution to the problem of harassment.

This wonderful book clearly shows that it needn't come to this. Before you strap on ninety pounds of C-4 and six inch nails, please read this superb study. Not only will it be more satisfying to use the System to defeat these callous bullies, you'll even live to see the fruits of your actions!

Please do not consider my above comments to be flippant. I know what went through my own mind during my darkest hours of persecution. While I was able to clear my own debts by getting a consolidation mortgage, there are many people who do not have this option, and for them, desperate measures will surely beckon.

In the post-911 world, even debt collectors should be reflecting on their mortality. I urge you to arm yourselves with knowledge, not propylene oxide. Buy this book, and Back Off!, and beat the bullies at their own game. Nuke the system, not the building!

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Save your money, starting now..., December 24, 2003

By 

Abe Vigoda "part-time inventor" (Vermont, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collection Agency Harassment: What the Debt Collector Doesn't Want You to Know (Paperback)

Let me start this review by saving you some money. Click on the author's name to get his newer version. It's contains the same advice at a cheaper price.
The advice he gives is very effective. No need to feel nervous when speaking with those "tough talkers" hiding behind the phone line as they say things which you know they would never say to your face. The fact of the matter is that there is a law on the books which stops them from phoning you but you have to say the magic words... "I want you to stop calling me, cease all phone communications with me" It's that simple. Don't have conversations with these people, as they work with scripts. They have answers to every possible excuse you can come up with. So just tell them to stop calling even before they start to open their stinky mouths then hang-up in their face.