Camco
Capitol Aquisitions CAMCO Closes down Corporate office closed by FTC

Below is the actual article I cut and pasted from The Rockford Register Star website. I am an ex-employee of CAMCO, and am glad to see this happen.

ROCKFORD The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday described Capital Acquisitions and Management Co. As a bogus debt-collection operation that threatened and intimidated consumers in violation of federal law.

Today, two days after FTC officers shut down CAMCO and seized company property, the agency's Midwest director will explain the crackdown and how the company allegedly violated federal collection laws at a Chicago news conference.

The late-afternoon raid came nine months after CAMCO, which employs 350 people, agreed to end abusive collection practices it claimed never existed in the first place.

The FTC on Thursday filed a complaint against CAMCO for the second time this year for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, is sealed, but a court-appointed receiver said the charges mirror those the FTC levied against CAMCO in March.

That 13-count complaint, the culmination of a two-year investigation, alleged the company engaged in widespread abusive and deceptive collection practices, including using profanity and threatening consumers with imprisonment. It was the first regulatory action taken against the company.

The allegations were identical to those filed in numerous individual lawsuits nationwide.

CAMCO paid $300,000 and was not required to admit any wrongdoing as part of the agreement.

The FTC continued to monitor the company closely, and on Friday a federal judge in Chicago issued a temporary restraining order against the company because of continued violations. The federal agency then moved Monday afternoon to indefinitely shut down operations at CAMCO's headquarters at 303 N. Main St. FTC officials seized computers, froze the company's assets and changed the locks on the buildings.

CAMCO attorneys were scheduled to appear Monday at a federal court hearing in Chicago concerning the sealed order but failed to show up. A hearing on whether to make the restraining order permanent is scheduled for Friday in Chicago, court officials said.
CAMCO representatives were unavailable for comment. The U.S. Attorney's office in Rockford declined to comment.

FTC attorneys in Seattle and Chicago refused to comment and referred all questions to the commission's public affairs office in Washington, D.C., where press secretary Claudia Farrell said she could not comment until the case is unsealed.

Farrell did say the FTC typically has cases sealed when it fears a company may try to disperse its assets before the government levies a fine, although she would not confirm whether CAMCO was one of those cases.

Sometimes when we are afraid that we have defendants who will take their assets overseas (or hide them), we file complaints under seal and the judge seals the records for a period of time, Farrell said.in cases like that we might tell the judge that we are asking for this... Because we are afraid that the company might dissipate their assets, might send them overseas and/or they might also destroy records.

The sudden FTC move to close CAMCO creates uncertain employment status for the company's 350 workers, who were told to pack their belongings and leave the building Monday.

Jay Steinberg, the Chicago-based court-appointed receiver investigating the allegations, said employees were not permanently fired because the company may open again depending on the court's decision.

State labor officials encouraged CAMCO workers to examine their options.

The general rule is that people who are involuntarily unemployed are potentially eligible for benefits, said Joe Mueller, legal counsel for the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

Anjali Nayyar-Julka, an Illinois Department of Labor spokeswoman, said employees who do not receive wages, benefits or vacation they are owed should file a claim with the department.

The commission's new suit is based on consumer complaints to the FTC, Better Business Bureau and city of Rockford, Steinberg said, and effectively accuses CAMCO of violating the March agreement.

Allegations were made that they are continuing their same practices, Steinberg said. Whatever was alleged before is alleged again.

The news came as a surprise to city officials, who lauded CAMCO's arrival two years ago and were unaware the federal government was planning to seize the company's operations.

Mayor Doug Scott, who, with the Rockford Area Economic Development Council (formerly the Council of 100), lobbied to bring CAMCO here, said the city thought the company had corrected its collection methods since the FTC's case in March.

We were kind of under the impression things were different for them, Scott said.

When CAMCO moved its headquarters to Rockford in October the region was smarting from a jump in its unemployment rate to 7.8 percent from 6.5 percent the year before.

CAMCO promised nearly 500 jobs with an average annual salary of $40,000, and with more to be made through commission.

The company moved its headquarters from Sycamore into the former Pioneer Life Insurance building, lured by $5.1 million in local and state tax breaks over a 10-year span.

Local leaders ponied up for tax incentives to keep the company from locating in another state.

On Tuesday, those leaders expressed disappointment with the company's alleged failure to comply with federal laws.

When they came in they were filling a whole building downtown and doing it with a lot of good-paying jobs, and to have that be impacted as badly as it was yesterday is obviously disappointing, Scott said.
It's always disappointing when something like this happens and you have a lot of people out of work.

Bob Levin, president of the Rockford Area Economic Development Council, said it was premature for him to comment specifically on the new CAMCO allegations, but he added: Regardless of whatever industry a company may be in, there are good operators and some not so good.

This is not the first time the FTC has waded into the debt-collection industry.

From 1980 to March the agency filed 43 cases against debt-collection companies ranging in size from small-time operations to major corporations.

The only case in which the FTC barred debt collection was in June when it imposed a $300,000 civil penalty on David Cohen, owner of DC Credit Services Inc. And permanently banned him from engaging in debt-collection activities. Cohen had previously violated federal collection laws in 1992.

CAMCO could become the second such case.

It is a very severe remedy, but what else do you do? Steinberg said.

Dan
Rockford, Illinois
U.S.A.

Company: Camco
Country: USA
State: Illinois
City: Rockford

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