tara1748, I sent you a PM, dunno if you'll get a notice by email or by this thread, but we'd like to talk to about your TCR experience, we're having problems with them too. Please it would be greatly appreciated!

I'm just asking randomly...
I looking for input from our members...

Are you guys saving for an emergency fund/ do you have one in place already?

/threadview/1161.html

When an account goes into collections most of the time it is after you have filed bankruptcy. For the most part, the client either fails to notify the collection agency or they lose the information. With regards to "legal" the collection agency must have permission from the client to sue before they can even say it, most agencies will say "I will recommend the client proceed with legal action". Telus Mobility will no longer sue due to the bad press they received during there strike a few years ago, so you should not worry about that.

When you're filing for bankruptcy, you are supposed to give the trustee a list of your current liabilities/debts so that whatever unsecured assets you or your business has (subject to various provincial exemption limits) can get divided up among the creditors.

The trustee needs to know this so he can notify them of a hearing during which they can informed of what assets they might be able to receive some partial recovery from OR to be able to give material reason as to why they oppose your application.

In this case, you evidently failed to tell your trustee about your Telus account. It's a little hard to understand how that happened, given its amount. Still, as your trustee told you, it's usually not fatal to your application. Nevertheless, Telus had no way of knowing your situation unless someone told them, so you really can't blame them; only yourself.

The flareup with CBV only involves peripheral issues which were made worse by the hopeless group of zombies they employ. CBV, especially the Montreal office, has snot nosed punks in cheap suits and even cheaper aftershave lotion (which, I'm told, smells like a concoction of snake oil and gasoline - maybe, that's just what it is) - passing themselves off as lawyers and legal depatment executives. They often give themselves away by using phrases like, "hey mon, you gotta any o' dat mullah for us today so we don't haffa brake yo' legs?"

Anyway, as I've said many times, if it gives you pleasure, writing long letters and filling up tapes with their zombiespeak, by all means, go for it. But as you, and endless others have discovered, it's a complete waste of time. All your efforts produced was, at best, one form letter the appropriate government pencil pusher sent out as window dressing. I've never encountered one exception to this in a single province. I'm still waiting for someone to show me I'm wrong.

Ray

The best advice i recieved during my battle with CBV Collections was to know my rights, and make a log of everything. You do not have to record anything although it will help.

Here is my story: I was self employed and in April 06 my entire company burnt to the ground. I have estimated a lose of approximately 350 000.00 for which i was only insured for 70 000.00. Obviously this was my own fault as i never upgraded the insurance as the company had grown. I spent the next year trying to pull my ass out of the sling before i realized i was going to have to surcome to defeat and claimed bankruptcy. A few months later i recieved calls from CBV Collections. The following is the log i made and later submitted to the bccpa in a complaint.

yesterday I received 5 calls from their collectors in 1 hour,

1st call:2:24 pm July 18th, 2007

she informed me that I had an outstanding bill with telus mobility that she was in charge of collecting. I informed her that I had gone bankrupt on march 6th and that the said bill should have been considered with my bankruptcy. she told me that the bill was my responsibility. I again explained that I am in bankruptcy and that the bill should have been covered. she begged to differ and would contact my trustee for the information. I gave her the name and number of my trustee. (at this point the calls should have stopped as i had supplied the name and number of my trustee, who was contacted by said agent and who supplied the collection agency with a copy of my bankruptcy and i clearly stated this debt was in dispute.)

call 2: 3:00pm July 18, 2007

I explained again that I had gone bankrupt and I believed that bill was a part of it. she again explained that the bill was my responsibility. she offered to reduce the debt and I explained to her again that I am in bankruptcy and didn't have money to pay. she told me that if I did not pay them today that they would proceed with legal action.

I didn't understand why after explaining that I was in bankruptcy and that the bill should be covered. she was rude, implied I was incompetent as I didn't know what she was talking about. I again explained that I didn't have 8500.00 and that I was in bankruptcy and had no way of getting that kind of money. she insisted that find a way to pay today or they would take legal action. I again explained I had no money I was in bankruptcy and this bill should have been covered. frustrated I hung up

3rd call: 3:14 pm July 18th, 2007

this time I was contacted by MOE BATLAWLE who claimed to be the head of the legal department. he informed me that if I did not clear up this debt that the legal ramification would cost me 20000.00 rather then 8500.00. I still don’t understand what this bill is for as I claimed bankruptcy. After asking several times as to the nature of the bill, he in formed me that it was cancellation fees.(of which I still believe should be part of the bankruptcy). again I explained to him about the bankruptcy. he suggested I had a mortgage and he would lien my house, I reply I don't own a house.

Then he told me to be available for his call between 9 am and noon on July 19th and if I was not or avoided his calls at all that the bailiff would be here between 12noon and 5pm to repo my car. at this point I was in tears as I didn't even know why they were attacking me this way AND CALLING EVER 15 MINUTES.

*I called my trustee at this time and he told me he would look into it and that I should not worry as they could not do the things they were saying with a court order. my trustee called the number Moe supplied me and Moe informed my trustee that the previous agent was not doing her job right so he took over the file.(so was this guy training the other agent to Quote "do her job right!)

call #4: 3:24 pm July 18, 2007

the same girl called me back demanding that I pay 8500.00 today or they would follow through with repo of my car. I again explained my situation. and asked for the company name again. she did not want to give me the name of the company. I asked repeatedly for the company name eventually she gave it to me ..CPV SERVICES. I asked her to stop harassing me and hung up

call 5: 3:25pm July 18, 2007

the phone rang again same private caller I did not pick up. Called my trustee to see what was happening and explained again the events of the day. He called Moe’s manager . the phone stopped ringing.

at this point i went online to find out what my rights were. Thanks to all the different blogs and a very informative page from bccpa i realized that within 1 hour these people broke many laws. i sent a formal complaint to the bccpa.

I have read through your info page and believe that this kind of behavior is unreasonable for the following reasons:

1) they called me 5 times in one hour------------- Make frequent calls in a manner or with a frequency as to constitute harassment. Unless you provide the reason, a collector should NEVER call you more than once a day. Reasonable collection practices should not require that the collector call you more than once a week or every second week in order to determine if your financial situation has changed;

2) I believe Moe batlowle misrepresented himself to me as head of the legal department and with the tag teaming calls between him and the other agent sent me into a panic attack, in tears, and unable to even speak to my trustee(I am in bankruptcy) to explain the situation as I was so upset THEN MY SON STARTED TO CRY ...as I was so rattled I could not even assure him everything was ok ----------Talk to you, your family or your employer in a way that will humiliate or distress anyone;

3) they told me they were coming to reposes my car tomorrow, what about court-------------- To take or try to take things you own to satisfy an unsecured debt without taking the matter to court and obtaining a judgment against you. For example furniture or assets that you did not use as security for the loan Failure to pay a judgment issued by a court may result in garnishees of your wages, bank accounts or the seizure and sale of your assets. However, such actions are not permitted to a Creditor or Collection Agent until the matter has been decided by a court.

(4) A person who contravenes any of the following sections commits an offence:offences committed by cbv collections on july 18th, 2007.

(g) section 114 (1) [harassment]; (2)a.b
(h) section 115 (1), (2) or (3) [disclosure to debtor];
(i) section 116 (1), (2), (3) or (4) [communication with debtor];
(n) section 121 (1), (2) or (4) [legal proceedings];
(o) section 122 [removal, seizure, repossession and distress];
(p) section 123 [false or misleading information and misrepresentations];

I had no idea this bill had gone to collections and can not understand why this was not a part of my bankruptcy. I am in the process of finding out. what ever the out come regarding this debt, I believe I was harassed and treated unfairly by CBV Collection Services Ltd. please advise to the validity of my claim as I may have misunderstood the Act. thank you for your time in this matter.

i did get results from this formal complaint, but i am not sure the punishment for this kind of behavior was signifigant enough to change anything, which lead to my original post here. Although i have never heard from anyone regarding the debt in question but that was not the point.

Original Post

"i have been dealing with a stituation with a debt collection agency and i would like to know what approriate internal measures are in regards to breach of the bpcpa .

after complaining to the bpcpa in regards to the conduct of a couple agents, an investigation(performed by an obudman employed by said agency), an apology conference call, and finally assurances that appropriate internal measures will be taken, i am still left with the feeling that not much is being done to stop the abussive behavior of some collection agents.

i feel i have exhausted all avenues available to me as a consumer (aside from suing them....which given my financial situation i can not afford) and believe these agents were found to have breached several section of the bpcpa and all they had to do was applogize.....woopy big deterant ..so...i would like to know before i go on ranting about the conclusion of my complaint...what does "appropriate internal measures" mean?

note: this is not about the debt but about the behavior of these agents"

Stand up for your rights....it didn't cost me anything...only my time to submit a complaint via email...now this may not solve the debt that is haunting you or prove or disprove the legitemacy of a debt, but it will stop abusive behavior. Each province/state has its own rules.....know them!

Addendum:

I hadn't checked the discovervancouver.com website for a number of months, but having done so just now, I see many fine examples of persistence (but NOT harassment) are still being displayed by ex-TCR alumna, Deanna Natale. The recent post below regarding the Diva of Debt typifies the sort of behavior Jaimedude would in no way consider as being harassing.

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Dear Sir;

My name is Yvonne and I am the care giver for kathleen coombs.She received an lawyer's letter from Natale lawyer's office and threaten to take her to court for a credit bills that she could not pay because she had three stokes and could not take of her self and had to hire me to take of her. This fool called her up and said that they didn't care what was going on down here with her they wanted their money and I advised my client that this was a scam because a lawyer in another province would not waste his or her time with small fry like my client and that this was a collection place and not to worry about it. This has claused my client to be taken to hospital because she feared for her life that she would be put in jail. She is out of hospital and and doing fine now.I happened to open this letter and then checked it out on the web and found your website exposing her as a f******. Thank you very much for this website and I will tell all my clients about this f***** . My client is from halifax, nova scotia and is on a small pension and is very frail thank god I had enough sense to go to this fool's website or esle I would never have known what was going on.Thank you very much

I remain yours truly;

Yvonne oickle

One can see from "The Dude's" statements how collection agencies twist the truth until it bears little or no resemblance to reality.

Consider his assertion re collectors contacting employers. The various provincial collection agency acts more or less parallel the Ontario one on this point

4) No collection agency or collector shall contact or attempt to contact the debtor’s employer unless,

(b) the debtor has given the collection agency or collector written authorization to contact the debtor’s employer;

(c) the contact occurs only once and is for the sole purpose of confirming one or more of the debtor’s employment, the debtor’s business title and the debtor’s business address......

Well, only the world's biggest idiot would agree to (b). As for (c), any perusal of the blogs, on this or any other forum, shows that one of collectors' favorite blackmail tactics is to endlessly call everyone they can think of in the debtor's office from the president to the hr director to the janitor to embarrass and humiliate them. Rather than being used for the purpose it was intended, (b) is misused as a blackmail tool. Collection agents know full well that it's illegal, but they also know that enforcement under people like Brian Pitkin of Consumer Protection in Ontario is virtually non-existent - as bloggers like XDebt_Collector have adamantly attested to.

Countless posts reveal the same strategy is employed with debtors' relatives and friends. They don't make one phone call to ascertain identity; instead they call them for months. Their modus operandi, is "if you squeeze any nut hard enough, it'll crack." "Persistence wears down resistance" is the clarion call TCR uses on their website. However, as we've seen, "persistence", in 'The Dude' and his buddies' doublespeak, actually means "harassment."

As for calling someone's mother a whore, ask TCH Alliance One; perhaps they could supply details. Actually, collection agencies do a lot more than just that though. They use vulgarities concerning sexual acts, including the 2 hyphenated monikers that I can't repeat here. Even when the tapes are played, nothing is done. But heh, like the old saying goes: Garbage in, garbage out. And, no, I'm not imagining things.

I will have to agree with you that "people are mostly ignorant concerning the law." Your posts amply demonstrate that. Bud Hibbs sure has your and your buddies' number.

Ray

Raymond, when the average debtor claims that a collection agency is harassing them, it truly isn’t about anything that you listed.

A debtor not picking up his/her phone when they call, and the agency calls every day for contact – this is what a debtor deems harassment (which it is not).

I however, WILL agree contacting a debtor when they sent a registered letter to cease and desist phone calls, a registered letter disputing the balance/account, or having a lawyer send a letter stating to only deal with them so long as they are still retained by the debtor.

Calling ones family/work for contact is also NOT harassment when they agency does not have a valid telephone number. It clearly states that in the Act.

As I said, people are mostly ignorant when it comes to law. Most people assume that when someone says stop, and they don’t, its harassment. Sorry.

And what the hell are you talking about, calling a dead mother a whore?

"....because they just chose not to deal with the matter and tell them not to call. Unfortunately, it's not an option. Most people are just ignorant on the [sic.] front."

Sorry "Dude," but actually, it's not only an option, but the law - as you can see from Section 22 (1), (2) and (4) of the Collections Act of Ontario. But you guys don't pay too much attention to the law, do you?

And as far as being ignorant goes, doing things like calling a guy's dead mother a whore....that wouldn't be ignorant would it?

Ray

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(1) If a debtor sends a collection agency or collector, by registered mail, a letter stating that the debtor disputes the debt and suggests that the matter be taken to court, the collection agency or collector shall not thereafter contact or attempt to contact the debtor, unless the debtor consents to or requests the contact. O. Reg. 103/06, s. 2.

(2) If a debtor or his or her lawyer sends a collection agency or collector, by registered mail, a letter requesting that the collection agency or collector communicate only with the debtor’s lawyer and setting out the lawyer’s address and telephone number, the collection agency or collector shall not thereafter contact or attempt to contact the debtor other than through the debtor’s lawyer, unless the debtor consents to or requests the contact. O. Reg. 103/06, s. 2.

(3) No collection agency or collector shall contact or attempt to contact the debtor’s spouse, a member of the debtor’s family or household, or a relative, neighbour, friend or acquaintance of the debtor unless,

(a) the person being contacted has guaranteed to pay the debt and the contact is in respect of that guarantee;

(b) the debtor has requested the collection agency or collector to discuss the debt with the person being contacted; or

(c) the collection agency or collector does not have the debtor’s home address or home telephone number and the contact is for the sole purpose of obtaining the debtor’s home address or home telephone number. O. Reg. 103/06, s. 2.

(4) No collection agency or collector shall contact or attempt to contact the debtor’s employer unless,

(a) the employer has guaranteed to pay the debt and the contact is in respect of that guarantee;

(b) the debtor has given the collection agency or collector written authorization to contact the debtor’s employer;

(c) the contact occurs only once and is for the sole purpose of confirming one or more of the debtor’s employment, the debtor’s business title and the debtor’s business address; or

(d) the contact is in respect of payments pursuant to,

(i) a wage assignment given to a credit union within the meaning of the Credit Unions and Caisses Populaires Act, 1994, or to a caisse populaire within the meaning of that Act, or

(ii) an order or judgment made by a court in favour of the collection agency or collector or of a creditor who is a client of the collection agency or collector. O. Reg. 103/06, s. 2.

But not everyone is ignorant to it, there are some people that try to work with the collection agencies, like myself, and they continue to harass you, they continue to threaten you. One time I have Canadian Debt Recovery leave a message on my voice mail, that I know was meant to scare me. On my debt, it has my maiden name, but on my voice mail ot has my married name, and you could hear the guy talking in the background, asking why I was using an alias, that if I owned any property or cars. When I called them back, I ripped into them, saying they were accusing me of fraud, because they said I was using an alias, when it was in fact, my married name, I told him that I did not want any more calls made to my phone, that only correspondence would be through fax or regular mail, which they did do. They ended up suing me for the money, I hired a paralegal to handle my case, and when it went to mediation, the guy from the collection agency was not helpful, he did want to take a deal, he wanted all the money, so the mediator said it would have to go to trial, I was not at this hearing. They had 30 days to file for it to go to trial, and they never filed in time, actually to this day, they still haven't filed and the mediation was back in November of 2007. I am waiting for the call to come for them to try and harass me again for the money, but I know they cannot do that, and if they do call me again, I will be taking them to court for harassment.