3 debt collectors face abuse suit
By Jerry Gleeson • jgleeson@lohud.com • August 20, 2009


The debt collection business is growing, and so is abuse, state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said at his regional office in White Plains yesterday.





Cuomo's office is suing three Buffalo-area men, charging that they targeted hundreds of consumers for threats and intimidation over unpaid bills. State officials said collectors routinely posed as police officers and threatened to arrest or harm consumers if they didn't immediately pay.



In one case, a collector is alleged to have described sexual acts he would perform with a debtor's daughter unless the bill were paid. Namecalling was common, with collectors telling consumers they were "drunks," "scumbags" and "deadbeats," the state charged.



A 70-year-old Stony Point woman who complained to the Attorney General's office last year about the collectors described a trying experience. The woman, who asked not to be identified, said she had agreed to cover credit card debt of a family member, but only up to $2,000.



Unsatisfied with the offer, the collectors called repeatedly for several weeks, pressing her to pay more, she said. She adamantly refused.



"‘We're going to put you in jail,'" she said she was told.



"These people sounded like they really enjoyed what they were doing," she said. "They had so many employees. One would call me, and an hour later another would call."



They finally accepted her $2,000 offer, but managed to put an additional $2,000 bill on a credit card she had not activated, she said. She got the charge canceled.



At yesterday's news conference in White Plains, Cuomo played a tape recording made by a Rochester woman who was being dunned over the telephone by a collector who called her "totally ghetto" and an "uneducated reject." Cuomo said the woman was being hit up for a $150 debt that she had paid earlier.



Judgment filings have spiked, said Westchester County Clerk Timothy Idoni, who attended the news conference. Some process servers are bringing in 60 to 70 a day, compared with a handful just six months ago. The amounts are small, sometimes $50 to $100, compared with earlier judgments in the thousands of dollars, he said.



Cuomo said some collection companies are buying the debt from banks and other lienholders and then browbeating the consumers into paying. Federal and state laws prohibit fraudulent and harassing behavior in attempting to collect bills.



More than 850 complaints nationwide, including more than 150 in the state, have been filed involving the collection agencies run by the three men named in Cuomo's lawsuit: Omar Smith and Narvell Benning of Buffalo, and Keith Marshall of North Tonawanda.



The men did not have listed telephone numbers and could not be reached for comment. The telephone numbers of the 13 companies they ran either were disconnected or provided no response when called.