There is a 20/20 on Friday night which deals with abusive CAs...

The promos have nice examples of FDCPA violations with CAs calling the debtors losers, and the likes...

It should be a great edition...

(And hey, afterwards we can all come here and discuss it... :))
tivo is set thanks
Here is a preview of the show. (http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2802201) There are multiple short clips that preview the show.
Here is a comment about the show posted on a debt collector's forum

I put a response on the ABC blog yesterday as well. I found most of the
others to be complaints from debtors who seem to be seeking some sympathy for their lack of responsibility! The medical situations did disturb me, however.

I personally found the show last night to be somewhat positive for us. The
gentleman with the large agency and his professional and nice collectors seems more like the norm based on the members of this group! The woman "representing" us was positive although I wish she had been a little more confident in what she was saying!

I think every industry has "bad eggs" that bring negatives to it, ours maybe
more so due to the nature of what we do. But in the long run the point was
clear that we are an asset to the economy overall and to businesses and the
bottom line is that debts need to be paid! I particularly was pleased to hear
mention made of the abuse that we take! Maybe there will be enough response from the debt collectors to warrant a closer look at what we do!

Judy Angeramo

I have to agree with much of Judy's comments in that I too thought it praised debt collectors much more than it condemned them for their abuses.
Well, ACA's general council did have to eat crow when they played the phone call samples to her...

There were a whole lot of examples of creditor harrassment, "I'm the man who will end your life"...
i just watched it this morning. while there were some really severe cases of harrasment, i thought they focused more on the family that kept racking up debt. wasn't the kind of feature story i was expecting.
i just watched it this morning. while there were some really severe cases of harrasment, i thought they focused more on the family that kept racking up debt. wasn't the kind of feature story i was expecting.

The real question is how did people get into financial difficulty. Debt collectors tend to think everybody they contact is some kind of professional deadbeat.

They are not alone in thinking that way. They are joined in such thinking by those who are more affluent and successful in our society. Until it happens to them.

There are comparatively few people who can be properly categorized as professional deadbeats.
Just like not every CA is a PiTA... ;)

I've run into a few of them... Heck, one even gave me one thing to put into a letter to get his own company to stop dead in it's tracks... :)