On another board there is a thread from someone whose credit card debt was turned over to NCO, they, in turn have referred it to Natl. Arbitration Forum under the "compulsary arbitration disclosure" in many cc's now. Any lawyers out there who want to get in touch with this guy and help him sue? He has been "served" with a notice of arbitration with no FDCPA rules being followed. What's next!! Are the ca's going to try to have us sacrifice our first born sons??
Charlie has missed the point. Breeze read the thread and understands, to quote her "this is scarey !!" This is not the regular run of the mill "let's see what we can get away with" from the ca's. This is a whole NEW battleground.
Exactly, they are trying to use the arbitration clause to avoid FDCPA, validation, you name it, and force a debtor into giving them money under arbitration rather than by using collection tactics. Arbitration clauses are extremely vague, and NCO is taking advantage of this.
Actually, this guy has no recourse (that I know of). If you choose to not abide by the AA, you have to close your account by the date indicated. Non-response from the customer implies agreement.
Yikes!! You missed it too! You have to read the original post. This account is defaulted, and NCO collection agency is using the account arbitration clause as a collection tactic. No FDCPA. Need some coffee, Rina? How can everyone miss the implications of this? You are smart - there are a lot of smart people on here. There are tremendous implications.
When Citi and Cap 1 sent out those agreements last fall, that was in the back of my mind. But, I though the orginal creditor just wanted to streamline the recovery process. I never imagined they would be turned over to ca's. Breaking a binding arbitration is tough. The securities industry really started the trend in the early to mid 80's for both customer and employee complaints. When the market collasped in 1987, a raft of customers tried to sue their brokers and were stopped by the arbitration agreement. Many employees of brokerage firms found this out the hard way. In fact, the analyst that first sounded the alarm about Enron last spring and was fired has had to submit to arbitration. I wonder if ca's are selectively trying out a few of these just to see if it will stick? This is the first I've heard of this and, if it were widespread, it seems someone would have posted here asking for advice. In any event, it'll take some big bucks for a defense lawyer which is something people in collections won't have access too. I imagine that is another factor in the ca's thinking.
They still need to prove their case, and you still can receive damages, Judges do not know about credit laws it seems anyways.
Exactly, keepmine!! I thought the arbitration agreements were very vague, but you know that if you don't accept the agreements, they will close the accounts. It's just an unstated fact. I said it was NCO, turns out it Wolpoff and Abramson - lawyer collectors.
I told him to "send a letter to the Arbitration Forum's Trademark Compliance Department and notify them that NCO is sending out documents that a "Reasonable Person" would interpret as being from the Arbitration Forum's Offices, and that these notices contain many violations of FTC regulations. Then inquire sweetly if their lawyers would be so kind as to tear NCO a new rectal orifice." **************** I agree that this is a whole new field of battle so we need new weapons and tactics with which to wage this battle. Let's see if we can't get the Arbitration Forum annoyed with the CA's before the fact. I also noted that one of his posts stated that this AA would survive bancruptcy. I think there are some serious Federal Statutes that will shut that down. After all, that's why there are bancruptcy laws? True? Maybe it's time for a bancruptcy judge to determine case law that these AA aren't enforcable in a collection aspect. I'm concerned about the implications of this too. Dancer
BTW, did the AA cover "and assigns"? How could it when you signed binding AA with one company without knowing who the "assigns" would be? Dancer
OK, unsecured debt won't survive bk. What the agreements mean by that statement is, if you have a dispute with the cc {i.e they owe you money}. You won't be able to assign your claim to anyone else in the event of your personal bk.
This is not good. In Georgia, you have the choice of sending the collection agency a demand letter for the violations and damages... wait 31 days after receipt... then you can use our Office of Consumer Affairs. They have the ability to not only fine a collection agency for its violations, but the office can collect damages for the consumer as well. For our office to step in, though, you do have to send a demand letter. I don't know how effective this office is (yet)... but I don't think NCO could make a state agency bend over and take arbitration By the way, you're completely correct. The implications of this are scarey. As to a consumer still being able to sue a collection agency, I do believe the exception to the forcing of arbitration was the consumer could still sue in small claims court. The point, we were told, was to block class action lawsuits as those types of lawsuits actually could impact a large company.... and since the big companies get to co-author our laws... well, we wouldn't want class-action lawsuits then... now would we. Of course, if the consumer sues in Magistrate Court the out here is the collection agency could try to bump the venue to District court... then force arbitration because the issue is no longer in magistrate court... nice system, huh.
Marie, According to my Citi agreement, they will allow you to file against them in small claims court but, it must stay in small claims. That would pretty much kill any appeal process.
