Debt collection letters
Last week’s Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly has as a front-page story an article about a recent decision out of the Eastern District of New York, Weiss v. Zwicker & Associates. The judge found the defendant debt collection firm violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by sending a letter to a debtor on behalf of American Express that did not clearly state the amount of money owed. The letter at issue was sent on March 26, 2008 unsigned indicating an amount owed. The letter further stated that the creditor had hired its firm for the Plaintiff’s “failure to respond to previous collection attempts.” According to the letter, the balance “may include additional charges including delinquency charges, as applied at direction of [AMEX], if said charges are permissible in accordance with the terms of your agreement.” U.S. District Court Judge Arthur D. Spatt found that a consumer could possibly interpret that the total balance included additional charges which were not adequately disclosed.
This case made me think of some of the more outrageous debt collections letters I have seen in bankruptcy practice. One that comes to mind is a letter to the debtor’s employer to terminate a wage garnishment on the employee’s earnings that included the debtor’s Social Security number. This SSN would be in full view of both parties receiving the letter, the employer and me as debtor’s attorney and seems unnecessary as employer would presumably otherwise adequately identify the debtor as its employee with a wage garnishment in place on their paycheck.
Lawyers defending firms against the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act seem to feel that the federal statute is interpreted very differently from one jurisdiction to another. Regardless of this, a debtor receiving a debt collection letter with language that seems questionable should not hesitate to contact an attorney in their jurisdiction specializing in this type of litigation to determine whether they may have a cause of action and if not but they need to deal with such debts through bankruptcy to contact a qualified bankruptcy practitioner in their jurisdiction to determine whether they might qualify for discharge relief from such debts.
