Scott Lowery Collect America I had a $20,000 MBNA debt that got sold off to Scott Lowery/Collect America. They told me that I could make $300 payments a 0% interest rate. I made payments for over two years. Nationwide Colorado

First mistake - NEVER EVER make arrangements with a third party debt collector
Second mistake - never pay a third party debt collector
Talk to a consumer advocate attorney and see what you can do
This is one of the worst third party collection agencies
go to www.budhibbs.com and get informed
I sued one of the bottom feeders, won and they have yet to pay me or my attorney
Funny - they want their so called "money' but once a judgement is against them they refuse to pay

Ok, I am writing this just as a general FYI for consumers, this is the latest rip-off report for a collection law firm that i could find.

I work in a collection law firm- hence the name.

So here are my tips for how to deal with us "bad guys" :)

First off, most agencies have something similar to a "two refusal, then cancel" policy. Meaning that if you tell us no twice, and we have a reason to believe that you are telling the truth (i.e. unable to pay), then we won't continue to call you. But most agencies also have a policy that says that you can't cancel an account until you get some actual physical contact with the debtor. So if we know that we are calling the right person (i.e., the answering machine says "HI, you've reached the Smiths, John and Susan aren't in right now") but you don't respond, we will either ramp up our efforts- i.e., try to find other ways to contact you- or call at different times than we usually do, to try and get somebody to actually pick up the phone.

When we call, we specifically target the people who we think are most able to pay...

For instance, if we see that someone is an 82-year old woman, living on SSI in a poor neighborhood, and does not own any property, we will spend a minimal amount of effort trying to contact this person, and once we do, if that person tells us that they aren't able to pay- it's a waste of our time threatening a lawsuit, etc. We will either accept minimal monthly payments, or accept that the person can't pay, and move on.

But if we call at work and are constantly told that you are "in the back," "can't come to the phone right now," "already gone for the day," etc., it's not that hard to see that you are just throwing up a smokescreen. And the no. 1 rule for a collector, when evaluating what debtors to go after the most, is WHETHER THEY HAVE A JOB.


So the best thing you can do is PICK UP THE PHONE AND TALK TO US. Despite what all the "consumer advocate" attorneys say, and what you might like to believe, we are not evil money-grubbers, nor are we stupid. If we talk to somebody and they are reasonable, then we will work with them. If somebody just throws up all sorts of roadblocks- not because they are actually disputing a debt, but because they know they owe the debt and just don't want to deal with it for whatever reason- it just makes our job harder, and we are that much less inclined to believe what you have to say when you finally do come to the phone- i.e., if you have never answered the phone after 6 months of calling, and then one day you pick up and say that it's our lucky day because you are going to start, right that minute, sending out payments- don't cry foul when we want something a little more concrete as proof of your intentions.

I know this is just a bunch of loosely-thrown together information that has nothing really to do with this particular report, but I have been amazed over the years by things I have read here and on Bud Hibbs and similar sites that are simply bad information and that can end up getting the consumer in more trouble than they are already in. Many times there are things posted about my particular office on BudHibbs.com regarding possible lawsuits. Bud will invariably tell people not to worry, that they won't get sued. Then a few days later when they receive notice of a lawsuit and go back to BH.com wondering what happened, their comments are summarily removed. Don't believe me? Spend a year checking on how many comments any particular office gets, and then keep track of how many of those get removed with no reason given whatsoever.