Is Asset Recovery Solutions calling you? Here’s what you need to know.
When you hear the phone ring, do you sweat anxiously and debate the wisdom of turning it off for a few hours? If you’re being hounded by debt collectors, the answer is likely yes. Although you want to settle your debts, your current financial situation makes that impossible, so day after day you have to listen to the phone ring and the hostile messages that the debt collector leaves. Is there any way to make it stop?
Actually, there is.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, or FDCPA, is a consumer protection law that gives you the right to dispute a debt and tell the collection agency to stop calling you. It also regulates debt collector conduct, making it illegal for them to do any of the following when collecting or attempting to collect a debt from you:
- Using profane or obscene language
- Pretending to be police officers or government agents
- Threatening to have you arrested
- Contacting you by telephone outside of the 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. time frame, or at work when you’ve already indicated that your employer does not allow such calls
- Making threats they cannot legally carry out
- Telling your friends, neighbors, and co-workers about the debt
- Ignoring you when you formally request that they stop contacting you
Although these actions and others like them are against the law, many debt collectors practice them nonetheless.
Asset Recovery Solutions, LLC is a collection agency located in Des Plaines, Illinois. It was established in 2009 and is a smaller company, with less than 10 employees, but collects all types of consumer debt across the country. A search of the PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) website as well as consumer complaint websites turns up several instances of Asset Recovery Solutions, LLC being accused of violating the FDCPA.
Monique Bursey v. Asset Recovery Solutions, LLC. (Case 2:14-cv-00570-SRB, from United States District Court, District of Arizona)
Sometime prior to February 2014, Arizona resident Monique Bursey allegedly incurred a debt that went into default and was placed with Asset Recovery Solutions, LLC for collection. Ms. Bursey, who disputed the account, later claimed that in February and March, debt collectors contacted her relentlessly, at one point calling her three times in three minutes.
They allegedly even called her at work after being advised that she could not speak to them there and threatened her with arrest if she failed to pay.
The complaint that Ms. Bursey’s attorney filed with the US District Court accused Asset Recovery Solutions, LLC of the following FDCPA violations:
- Using the telephone to harass her (15 U.S.C. § 1692d)
- Calling her at work after she advised them she could not receive such calls there (15 U.S.C. § 1692c(3))
- Threatening her with arrest if she did not pay (15 U.S.C. §1692e(5))
The suit was later settled.
The phone numbers for Asset Recovery Solutions, LLC are 1-847-257-8305 and 1-888-678-0087. Should either number appear on your caller ID, a debt collector is trying to settle a debt you are believed to owe.
Although they are legally permitted to try collecting money, they may not threaten you with arrest, call you at work if your boss doesn’t allow it, or use the phone to harass you. If such behavior occurs, contact a consumer attorney who can help you take Asset Recovery Solutions, LLC to court. You could receive statutory damages of $1,000 per FDCPA violation as well as actual damages, court costs, and attorney fees.
These penalties remind debt collectors that under the FDCPA, consumers have rights that must be respected.
*The content of this article is not applicable solely to Asset Recovery Solutions, but to any third-party collection agency by which you claim to have been harassed.