Once a collector always a collector

Raymond you hit the nail on the head with dealing with the hammerheads.With no help at all available from govt etc the only thing that works is just hammering them back at every chance.People shouldnt be scared or upset when they call just stay cool and hammer them and hammer them and hammer them again.Like you have said eventually they will crumble and its fun to give it back to them at the same time.

I think that though Silverthorn has supposedly changed sides he is still a lawyer and it sounds from his book like he still is not too far away from his old friends.I still get the feeling that he is wearing a different suit but if you take it off the black and white colors are still there.

Yes, I believe a large portion of my previous 1135 posts has been devoted to hammering the hammerheads. Being hammerheads, the telephone terrorists don't realize they are the ones in the weak position; they make their living oiff the telephone, the client doesn't. They've got got 100 numbers or weak spots; the debtor only has 1 or 2. Nothing like getting the head guy or ombudsman's phone number and giving them the old 10 for 1 "Raymond Jackson Special" like blogger "Optingout" did - or was supposed to.

That's why several people posted Deanna Natale's Law offices home phone number on this and other forums.

See also my post on the guy who contacted the MBNA's credit manager at home and how one GENTLE call stopped 3 months, 7 days a week of non-stop auto dialler harassment.

Still, you've got to be careful if you call anyone at home as opposed to at work. A very different standard applies due to CCC Section 372(3). In fact, unless you know what you're doing it's best avoided. A moot point because dealing with them at work is usually sufficiently effective. But at their place of work, it's always open season on them.

Contrarily, Mark Silverthorn advises us to be nice, or at least not be unpleasant, to collection agents, asserting it's counterproductive to be confrontational. He advise one to file a complaint with Consumer Protection. The reader can judge for themselves the effectiveness of that advice by reading the 7000 previous posts on this forum or any other.

Silverthorn is a lawyer and would be in trouble with the Law Society if he advised anyone to follow anything other than official channels. But being a collection lawyer for 12 years and being involved with major collection agencies, he fully knows what goes on and how they get away with the stuff they do. If going to Consumer Protection worked, how were all the firms he worked for able to get away with what they did for 12 years. Monty never asked him any tough questions because of a conflict of interest. However, some of the questions he should have been asked include

How many collection agents or agencies does he know of who have ever lost their licences by going to Consumer Protection. The odd person takes them to court for regulatory infractions and tort damages but significant awards are rare.

How many collection agencies have been charged with and convicted of criminal harassment during his 12 years of practice?

Why is being "nice" with a collection agent preferable to giving them what they deserve?

Some of the counter tactics Mr. Silverthorn suggests (in his book) for dealing with illegal methods used by collection agencies include but are not limited to the following:

ILLEGAL CONDUCT BY A COLLECTION AGENCY: YOUR OPTIONS

*Complaining under PIPEDA to the Privacy Commissioner

*Going to the Media with your complaints

*Making a complaint to Consumer Protection

*Criminal Conduct by a Collector: Laying Criminal Charges

*Making a Complaint to Senior Management at a Collection Agency *Making a Complaint to Your Creditor
*Suing a Collection Agency

*Suing a Collection Agency for an Intentional Act under Common Law

*Suing a Collection Agency for a Negligent Act under the Common Law

*Suing a Collection Agency for Violation of a Provincial Licensing Statute

*Suing a Collection Agency for a Statutory Tort

Unfortunately, the average guy in the street isn't likely to know the difference between a statutory tort and a butter tart. But even if they did, their prospects for redress under the judicial system would be minimal.

****For example, lets look at his suggestion of laying criminal harassment charges against a collection agency. In fact, Franniee2003's case might be an example of where this is warranted.

Silverthorn is right in saying that the applicable sections of the Criminal Code of Canada are Sections 372(1) [false and misleading threats], 372(3) [harassing telephone calls], and more seriously, Section 264 [criminal harassment].

How does any of this fly in the real world? Collection agents make false and misleading threats 100,000 times a day in Canada. Silverthorn tells us tens of thousands of bogus legal summonses are mailed out everyday. Look at Franniee2003's posts regarding Commercial Credit Adjusters as a prime example.

Who has ever been charged under S 372(1)? Ask Silverthorn to name one person. Ditto for Section 372(3), Can he name one collector in 12 yeras who has ever been charged with telephone harassment? Not 1000, not 100, not 10, but 1!

I've seen collectors to thereaten to break peoples' legs, call their mothers a whore; suggest gross perverted sexual acts, but even when the tapes were played nothing was done. And if charges don't get laid under Section 372, it's far more unlikely they would be layed under the more serious CCC Section 264.

Silverthorn is right in one respect. A person needs to contact the police with their evidence to try to get them to lay a charge. If the police won't, that already means they likely deem there's an insufficient basis. The complainant may then visit the local Justice of the Peace at the court house and lay a charge if the JP deems the charge not to be frivilous (and sometimes even if they do). But how many collectors have been charged or convicted of such charges in Silverthorn's 12 years of industry experience. If he can't name any - or only gives 1 or 2 - why suggest this as a viable course of action for others to take?

****Complaining to the collection agency manager? He's the biggest shyster of them all. How else did he get to be the manager for Pete's sake?

****Complaining to the Creditor? They just want their money. They don't care how its collected.

****Going to the local media? Only if you want to make a complete laughing stock of yourself? Do you?

****Suing a collection agency? If you do, remember court records belong to the public domain. That means that your case may get plastered all over the newspapers and web in return for a nominal amount of money such as the separate cases of Stephen Toban and Carole Roache vs. TCR. did. Or worse, as with Tran vs. Financial Debt Recovery, you might endure months of litigation work and consequent embarrassment only to have the paltry judgment overturned on defendant's appeal.

****Complaining to Consumer Protection? Consumer Protection is a collection agency's best friend. Think "Brian Pitkin." 'Nough said.

****Complaining to the Privacy Commissioner? A federal version of Consumer [NON]Protection; good luck.

****Actually, the one viable recouse is the one thing Silverthorn leaves out: Complaining to the Law Society of Upper Canada or its other provincial counterparts.

That's only applies when a collection agency uses a lawyer as a front to avoid having to follow the provincial collection agency act. Granted, a lawyer is exempt from having to follow the applicable provincial collections act; but note this caveat: A lawyer, under their professional rules of conduct, is not allowed to assist a client who might be a corporation as well as an individual or partnership to disobey any provincial stautory law or regulation. In particular, THEY MUST NOT BE A PARTY TO SUCH BEHAVIOUR AND IF THEIR CLIENT INSISTS ON CONTINUING IN SUCH BEHAVIOUR, THEY MUST RESIGN.

Now ask yourself this: How can a lawyer work/front for a collection agency when he knows they are making false, illegal and misleading threats. The answer is they can't. And legal firms all over the country routinely send out thousands of phoney documents threatening court action on stats barred debts. A lawyer isn't allowed to do this and yet Silverthorn never raise the issue in his book. Whether this is done out of deference to all his friends and fellow colleagues with whom he worked for so many years isn't revealed.

Ray

People at home and do to them what they try to do to us. And to that jerk who claims people should just pay and who you think are dead beat. You couldnt more wrong HArd to believe but Collection agencies dont listen dont play fair and lose you somewhere in a pile of [[edited: bad language]] when you try and prove them wrong And in some cases stuff happens and you have to make a choice feed your kids or pay a bill and people will take feed your kids. As for this site I am glad it is here