Is Financial Asset Management Systems calling you? Here’s what you need to know.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) regulates the ways that third-party debt collectors may obtain debt payments from consumers.
This law prohibits collection agencies from using unfair, deceptive, and abusive tactics to persuade consumers to settle debts, and imposes strong penalties when its guidelines are breached.
Generally speaking, debt collectors may not do any of the following:
- Fail or refuse to identify themselves as debt collectors during any communication with consumers
- Contacting consumers after receiving a formal request to stop
- Call a consumer at inconvenient times, usually before 8:00 a.m. and after 9:00 p.m.
- Use threatening or obscene language to intimidate a consumer into paying
- Threatening to have the consumer arrested or imprisoned for nonpayment
- Calling a consumer at work if the employer does not allow it
- Discussing the debt with uninvolved third parties such as the consumer’s friends, neighbors, and co-workers
- Contacting a consumer directly after being advised that they are represented by an attorney with regards to the debt
Alleged Violations against Financial Asset Management Systems*
Financial Asset Management Systems is a collection agency that was founded in 1993 and is presently headquartered in Atlanta, with call centers in Georgia, Missouri, and Ohio. Estimated employee count is 250 to 500. This particular collection agency has also been a defendant in several consumer-initiated lawsuits, many of which are viewable on the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) system website.
In or about May 7, 2009, a Pennsylvania resident began receiving calls at his workplace from Financial Asset Management Systems debt collectors, who were seeking payments for a delinquent financial obligation. The plaintiff claimed that these agents disclosed the debt to his employer’s human resources manager, who informed them that the company did not permit the plaintiff to receive personal calls at work. She also requested that they call him directly at home and not at work again.
Despite these instructions, debt collectors allegedly called the plaintiff’s workplace again on May 28, June 5, and June 19. Each time they spoke to the human resource manager, who insisted that they stop calling.
The plaintiff retained an attorney and filed suit. The complaint accused Financial Asset Management Systems of violating 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692b, 1692b(2), 1692b(3), 1692c(a)(1), 1692c(a)(3), 1692c(b), 1692d, 1692e(10), and 1692f, via the following actions:
- Communicating with the human resources manager for the purpose of acquiring information other than location information about the plaintiff
- Advising the human resources manager that the plaintiff owes a debt
- Calling the human resources manager at a time and place known or which should be known to be inconvenient to him
- Communicating with him at his place of employment after being told that employer prohibits such communication;
- Communication in the connection with the collection of the debt, with any person other than the plaintiff
- Engaging in conduct that was intended harass, oppress or abuse
- Using false, deceptive, misleading and unfair or unconscionable means to collect any debt
The matter was later dismissed.
If you receive a call from 1-888-668-6925, 1-800-530-2609 or 1-877-539-3913, a debt collector from Financial Asset Management Systems is trying to contact you about a debt. Should these calls occur at your workplace, you are within your rights to ask them to stop calling, and take them to court if they do not comply. The FDCPA prohibits collection agencies from calling consumers at their place of employment if such calls are not allowed, and you can be compensated up to $1000 per violation. A good consumer attorney will help you bring the unwanted communications to an end.
*Case taken from PACER (www.pacer.gov). File number is 2:10-cv-02151-PBT, from United States District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Disclaimer: The content of this article serves only to provide information and should not be construed as legal advice. If you file a claim against Financial Asset Management Systems or any other third-party collection agency, you may not be entitled to any compensation.