Lawyers say Debt Collector Not Breaking Any Rules

by Mike Bevel, CollectionIndustry.com

Back in the late ?80s and mid-?90s, four local Jamaican banks issued some credit cards. Then everything went kablooey, the banks folded, and Jamaica suffered one of its costliest financial sector meltdowns.

However, those credit cards were still out there. And the credit card still needed to be paid.

Recently, International Asset Services, an American debt collection agency with a division located in Jamaica, started sending out letters in an attempt to collect on some of those outstanding credit card debts. The letters weren?t necessarily pleasant, threatening law suits and demanding that the debtors visit IAS?s offices to either settle the obligations or to make payment arrangements.

There may have been a catch. Some industry watchdogs claimed that the debts were legally time-barred years ago. Jamaican statute of limitations on debts is six years.

But ? as it turns out ? that statute of limitations can be re-set if the debtor acknowledges said debt. Acknowledgment can take the form of, say, settling the obligation or arranging to make payments. And those debtors who did one or the other when they visited IAS effectively did just that: re-set the statute of limitations, and legally reactivated their old debts.

Patrick Foster, deputy solicitor-general at the Attorney-General’s Office, has said that the IAS was acting legally. It is the consumers’ responsibility to understand their legal rights and make the appropriate decision.

“What they are doing is to get debtors to come in and admit to debts,” Foster told the Jamaica Observer. “[The IAS] is legally entitled to collect the debt, it is up to the debtors to exercise [their rights].”