About an article in a collections industry rag by Bob (Boob) Dunham

In the November/December issue of Collection Advisor, a rag which seem to be put out by the American Collector's Association as near as I can tell, some boob by the name of Bob (herein after refferred to as [Boob]) Dunham authored an article in which he discusses the "problem" of so called "frivolous" collection lawsuits.

Of course, any lawsuit against a debt collector has to be a frivolous lawsuit in the eyes of every collections hack. I'm sure you all know the mentality wherein everybody else is the bad guy and the bad guy thinks he is God's gift to humanity.

In his article he says that today's market of debt selling, debt buying and debt servicing provides a new market ripe of plaintiff attorneys, and now there are three entities that can by pursued over matters of alleged wrongdoing or question of fact. He claims that this environment makes it very attrractive to attorneys who hae no intention of taking their sommons and complaint to trial. Dunham also asserts that attorneys are "playing the numbers game" by including the original creditor, debt buyers, and any or all collection agencies involved in the collection of an account. He states that Plaintiff attorneys know the case will be treated as a nuisance claim, and it that it is very common to settle these kinds of claims where each party throws in $2,000 or $3,000 and that way the attorneys end up with a claim worth $5,000 to maybe as much as $7,000 for each claim which provides te attorney with a nice payday who simply files a summons and complaint in their local district court.

Boob Dunham goes on to make the ludicrous claim that the debtor sees very little of the settlement payment because the attorney will drive up his or her charges and get paid before any settlement payment is rendered to the debtor who really don't give a hoot about the high amount charged by the attorney because the debt was netotiated to be waived or reported to the credit bureaus as "Paid in Full".

Anybody who knows enough to know how to access the internet and and find this and or any one of the multitude of other message boards or blogs where this type of subject is discussed has to wonder what part of the deep Piney Woods this squirrel roosts in because if he had even a modicum of actualy knowledge about these kinds of law suits knows that the average "man-on-the-street" debtor is totally and completely oblivious to the fact that they have any rights or protections from the debt collectors, much less that they can be sued for damages.

And equally true is the fact that even if the average "man-on-the-street" debtor did know enough to stand up and fight back as is his perfect legal right to do he would not be likely to find a competent attorney with enough smarts to sue the debt collector in the first place.

And as if that weren't bad enough, Boob Dunham makes it seem that any creditor can be sued any old time or place when in fact the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act plainly states that original creditors are exempt from any liability under FDCPA. However, as my students and most readers of this board know, if indeed the original creditor can be sued at all it is only possible in 23 states under state law.

Boob Dunham goes on to claim that since he is a debt collector himself nobody is going to sell him on how the debtor was "Mr. Nice Guy" in a collection call when "fact" is that te Mr. Nice Guy debtor pays the debt instead of crying wolf and filing lawsuits. That statement in and of itself should prove to one and all what the author knows about the collections game. If he were any kind of expert he would know that being his kind of "Mr. Nice Guy" absolutely requires the debtor to be completely and totally ignorant about the collections industry and the fact that they are completely and totally devoid of any sense of ethical values whatever and as a result are forced to define their own set of rules that they and only they deem and loudly proclaim to be "ethical".

Boob goes on to proclaim that the Fair Debt Collection Pratices Act (FDCPA) attempted to prevent frivolous lawsuits which are based on the definition of the word "validation" and/or confusion about the term and it's actual meaning. Of course, we all know that nothing could be further from the truth since the act specifically states exactly what the intentions of the act are and what it hopes to accomplish.

The very fact that Dunham would make such a patently false statement proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that he hasn't the brains to pour yellow water out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel.

Article reprinted on the Creditwrench message board

Boob Dunham's article in the November/December issue of Collection Advisor magazine