I would have probbaly used your services Richardc but as I am in NB it's a non starter.
Would appreciate hearing from you when your lawyer has reviewed it.
The Bank keeps calling three more tonight.

Fightback

That's awesome that you found that, we've know about it but only as proposed changes. Glad you informed us that they are passed. I haven't drilled down into it yet but our lawyer is reviewing it right now and the language needed to be used on communications.

If it can be used for our client's benefit we will incorporate it for sure.

In the podcast I was actually referring to collection agencies and what we know works right now to stop calls.

Well Monty I sent a registered letter to the Bank offering a settlement on a CC debt and also advised them that as per my rights they could not phone me only contact in writing.
They persisted in calling, some 24 calls in the last four days so i contacted their omsbudsman and complained. They until today did not reply so I filed an official complaint with FCAC yesterday.
The Bank Ombudsman has contacted me advising that it will take 7-10 business days to reply and that it may have to go to the Bank President.
FCAC have told me they will be investigating "shortly"
Thats how it is but I log all the calls and if we ever end up in court maybe I can use them in some way as a counterclaim.

Agreed....
http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/eng/default.asp

Just for people's info, the FCAC is Financial Consumer Agency of Canada

Rights and responsibilities.
http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/eng/consumers/default.asp

Fightback,
Good for you for exercising your rights. A registered letter to the bank and FCAC is the way to do it.

Short of rereading all of your posts.. can you tell me quickly what happened?

"Like for example, with the bank, you can’t stop the bank collector from calling you"

If its on CC debt you supposedly can, check out the FCAC website a registered letter telling them to write only is supposed to do the trick.

Practically we will see, I have a complaint in with the FCAC against a Bank right now.

If that is not enough to stop the calls then the Banks are disregarding the Bank Act with impunity

Monty Loree: I guess it sounds like you’ve been doing this for more than three years. You’ve had people who’ve had success and they’ve been working in your system for three years, so you’ve been doing this a while right?

Debt Settlement: Yes, we probably graduated a couple hundred clients now and done over a thousand budgets now, I believe in total. I think our current client count is close to 600. So we’ve got about 600 people currently enrolled in your program. It does work, yes.

Monty Loree: That sounds good. Again I’ve been talking with Richard Cooper who is the founder of Total Debt Freedom. Rich, I really appreciate your time today.

Debt Settlement: Awesome. Thanks for having me today Monty. I really appreciate it.

Monty Loree: Thank you!

Monty Loree: Okay. So there’s just two. How can everybody call you if they’re interested?

Debt Settlement: If they want to call and get a consultation from a debt consultant, the toll free number is 1-866-833-1992 or if they check out the website and check out the form for somebody to call them back. It’s just www.totaldebtfreedom.ca.

Monty Loree: Say the toll free number again?

Debt Settlement: It’s 1-866-833-1992.

Monty Loree: I think maybe the misconception is, that’s the true situation in the US not Canada. Like in the US, you can have the bill collector stop calling.

Debt Settlement: Yes, their collection laws are also a bit stronger. I mean coming back from Ontario for example, if you’re with the collection agency, you can stop the calls if you letter the collection agency by registered mail and basically tell them that you’re speeding the debt and you’re encouraging to take it to court. Outline your address and say, “I do not want any further phone calls. You can mail me stuff if you like.” Under the Collection Agency Act, they have to stop calling you. That’s one technique that will stop calls but I wouldn’t encourage anybody to encourage a collection agency to go and take legal action against them. I mean the real easy way to deal with collection calls, if you are not in love with your phone number, get a divorce and get a new one. It’s not that tough really. I mean if you just breakdown what a bill collector is and what they do, they’re really just 20 year old kids in a small cubicle that’s a telephone tough guy.

Monty Loree: Yes, that’s right. Let’s finish up here. So I just want to go over 3 points because people, first we want to talk about the 3 points, sort of the parameters of where people need to be before they call you and then we can tell how they can contact you. So their debt limit needs to be a certain amount, they need to have means and what was the other one? Can you talk about those three?

Debt Settlement: They’ve got to have steady income and they have to have at least $10,000 of unsecured credit card debt. That’s really it.

Monty Loree: Interesting. So for the example of these 3 that you’ve just talked about like, let’s say the elderly couple. They were musing along and living life and they were in a car accident. Probably prior to the car accident their credit was pretty good. Then all of a sudden they’ve got issues. Then with the debt settlement program, their credit takes a hit. I mean it’s good to take a hit anyway because they were going to miss payments. It sound likes example 2, the girl in the mid-twenties - she ballooned up her credit and her credit could have been really good at some point but all of a sudden, it get so much that she can’t make payments on it. So then she’s got to realize that going through the debt settlement program, her credit rating with Equifax and TransUnion that’s going to take a bit of a hit. My impression was that if people were working with you as debt settlement service, the bill collectors will not call?

Debt Settlement: Now there’s a lot of misconception about that because there’s a lot of chatter about claiming that they can stop bill collectors from calling and there’s really not a lot of ways to do that. Like in Ontario for example, you can only stop the bill collector from calling you at a collection agency. Like for example, with the bank, you can’t stop the bank collector from calling you. People think that credit counselor can do that and there are other ways to do that, but it’s just not true. The only way to get them to stop calling you is to pay the bill really. If you pay in full or settle it up – I’ve even seen people engage in monthly payment terms where they still get calls from bill collectors because they use constant reminders. There’s no guarantee the calls will stop.

Monty Loree: Right, no doubt. At the end of all of these basically the feeling that people had was relief. They had a clean slate, so they can start all over again. Basically they can see what was going on, and they did not have to live with stigma of bankruptcy for the rest of their life.

Debt Settlement: That’s a big thing that we noticed with the folks that we talked to. They really want to try avoid bankruptcy and pay something back. The stigma is pretty bad. It’s something that you don’t want to do. The program works, it takes a lot of commitment and dedication from the client. It’s not like it’s easier and happens over night, like people need to understand the key things. We’ll talk about those 3 things right now if you want. The 3 things that people need to get when they get into our debt settlement program is, it’s not going to help your credit. Right now your credit is not going to be good if you’re carrying the loan and you’re having money problems. So you really have to get off the, my credit is great wagon and think about the more important thing which is getting out of debt. So we let everybody know that their credit is going to take a bit of dive when they are in the program. But at the end of it once we are all settled up, because their debt service ratio is nice and clean, it’s actually quite easy to start rebuilding the credit. But during the course of the program, nothing really good happens to your credit. So that’s the first thing we tell them. The second thing that they need to understand is that the phone is probably going to ring while they are in the program. So they should expect phone calls from their bill collectors. It’s going to happen. It’s going to be notices sent until we settle the debt. It’s usually not that big of a deal for people, it’s pretty easily to deal with. There are a few techniques that we give them that help them get through that part. We like to fully disclose how everything’s going to work. The third thing the people need to get is sometimes the toughest one for them is you’re going to get the threat of legal action. They signed a legally binding contract with the credit card company to make certain payments that they stopped doing now. They need to realize that they breached that contract and the creditor has the right to sue them because of breach of contract. They are going to get threats to legal actions, scary notices. A lot of the times, it’s really not worth it to paper that it’s written on. I know that you and I have talked before about statement claims and some of the collection agency techniques. But people need to realize that it does happen. People do get sued in our program, probably about 4/5 out of every hundred end up getting sued. It’s really not that big of a deal when you think about it. The whole purpose of the law suit is really to force the settlement on a debt, which is kind of the purpose of our program anyway. So those two things can be worked out.