Daily Digest – September 11. Another Class Action Filed Over Confusing Creditor’s Name in Letter; Settlement Bars Group From ARM Industry

The Daily Digest is sponsored by Beam Software. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Beam is a thought leader in portfolio management and collection software. They offer both cloud-based and on-premise solutions to accommodate the entire collection continuum. For more information, please visit www.beamsoftware.com or call (800) 212-2326.

 

ANOTHER CLASS ACTION FILED OVER CONFUSING CREDITOR’S NAME IN LETTER

• Following the certification of a case last week in California, another class-action lawsuit has been filed, alleging a collection agency violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by not properly identifying the creditor in a collection letter sent to an individual.

 

SETTLEMENT BARS GROUP OF DEFENDANTS FROM ARM INDUSTRY

• A trio of individuals and the companies they operated have been banned from the collection industry for life as part of a settlement reached with the Federal Trade Commission. The defendants would accuse the individuals of committing a crime and threatening that they would be put into jail if they did not make payments on their outstanding debts. In many cases, the debts had already been paid or were non-existent, according to the FTC.

 

AUDIT BLASTS EFFECTIVENESS OF IRS PRIVATE COLLECTION AGENCY PROGRAM

• The Internal Revenue Service is not giving the four private collection agencies it contracted with to collect on outstanding debts very good accounts, according to the results of an audit released last week by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, but those collection agencies are also not very good at reporting issues or complaints and are putting individuals at risk of identity theft because they are using Social Security numbers to verify accounts.

 

MORE CONSUMERS EXPECT TO MISS DEBT PAYMENTS

• More consumers expect not to be able to pay their debts by the end of the year, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Reserve Board of New York. According to the report, 12.77% of consumers expect not to be able to make minimum debt payments three months from now, up from 11.84% in July. The 12.77% is at its highest point since last October.

 

HOW TO STOP SURPRISE MEDICAL BILLS

• There might be a solution to the problem of balance billing, and it comes by updating a 45-year-old law — the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) — which governs self-funded healthcare plans.

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The Daily Digest is sponsored by Beam Software. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Beam is a thought leader in portfolio management and collection software. They offer both cloud-based and on-premise solutions to accommodate the entire collection continuum. For more information, please visit www.beamsoftware.com or call (800) 212-2326.