Having a medical crisis that lands you in the hospital is stressful enough, but there’s a disturbing new trend that’s so bad, it makes the indignity of wearing a hospital gown pale in comparison. Debt collectors are masquerading as hospital workers and demanding that sick people cough up payments for old medical bills before receiving treatment — even in emergency rooms.
Callers from India — often posing as U.S. police officers — called at least 600,000 people across the U.S. about fake debts and took more than $5 million in real money, the Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday.
While you can’t control the price of gas or the direction of the stock market, many of life’s most irritating money challenges do have reliable solutions. Here are 9 all-too-common financial annoyances, and strategies for resolving them.
One of the biggest debt collection companies in the country recently agreed to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty in a settlement with the FTC — part of an escalating effort by the agency to keep tabs on and, when necessary, rein in the burgeoning bad-debt industry.
A person with blemished credit and a history of defaulted debts will have trouble getting a credit card, so an unsolicited credit card application can seem like a lifeline. But some of these cards come with some very sneaky fine print that can rope people into paying for debts they are no longer responsible for [...]
Now that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a director (albeit one whose appointment could be challenged in court), it has quite the to-do list. At the top, according to newly installed bureau head Richard Cordray, is federal supervision of non-bank entities that include debt collectors, payday loan operations, and mortgage lenders.
One day after President Obama appointed Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the objections of Senate Republicans, the bureau announced the launch of a new “nonbank supervision program.”
Also, learn from the mistakes of others: Check out lists of foolish (and wasteful) assumptions consumers make all the time, the dumbest money moves during one’s college days, and incredibly stupid things people do when shopping online.
The debt-collection industry has launched a push to modernize the laws that govern how they do business and what they’re allowed to do, and new legislation under consideration in Congress would give them the right to do so if passed.
What’s getting consumers up in arms lately? Check out the list that follows. Working with various state, local, and federal consumer agencies, the Consumer Federation of America has gathered and sifted through more than 252,000 complaints logged by consumers in 2010. The result is a freshly published list of the nation’s top 10 consumer gripes.
They make a living by hounding deadbeats (or presumed deadbeats) to pay off debts. Reports have surfaced that they routinely break the law in pursuit of payoffs. Now, debt collectors are asking for your respect, and even a little sympathy.
