The Washington Post Runs Exposé on Debt Purchasers

In today’s edition of the Washington Post, the debt purchasing community is taken to task for “embarrassing calls at work, threats of jail and even violence (and) improper withdrawals from bank accounts” ? in short, aggressive and illegal debt collection techniques. The story, entitled “As Debt Collectors Multiply, So Do Consumer Complaints”, appears on the front page of the paper’s print edition and is highlighted heavily on the Post’s web site.

The writer argues that the exponential increase in consumer complaints to the FTC so far this decade is due largely to overly zealous debt purchasers looking for quicker returns on their acquired paper. And while this premise is not necessarily inaccurate, the role that certain consumers play in the complaint increase is overlooked. But all in all, for a mainstream news article on the industry, the language is not terribly harsh and the treatment the industry receives is relatively fair, even considering industry stepchild CAMCO’s prominent role as an example of abuses.

Please take a few minutes to read the article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/27/AR2005072702473.html.

We would really like to get some feedback in this article from our readers. What is your feeling on this article? Should we as an industry respond? And what should we say? As usual, you can send any comments to editor@collectionindustry.com. Also, we have a new folder on the message board dedicated to discussions regarding industry news. You can access this folder by visiting the Discussion Forum, or by clicking on the new link above the headline of any of our news stories labeled Discuss.