Unifund bought my account from Providian on June 30. They made no direct contact with me and made no attempt to collect the debt directly. Unifund passed it off to an attorney in the state I live in to try to collect it and I was not contacted until 2004.in September I receive a letter from the sheriff's office that someone has file a lawsuit against me. When I picked up the paper work it was Unifund. I had no choice but to settle the case because it would cost me more money than it was worth to try to fight the lawsuit. I want to know how this company can just buy up debt all over the country and sue everyone.
Unifund buys up bad debt and a lot of it is under $1000.00. It is easy for them to have an attorney write you a letter an file a lawsuit because they are going to include the attorney's fees in the amount they sue you for and the attorneys can only charge you so much money based on the amount of the debt per state law and that is why they do it. They know it is harder for you to try to fight them because some attorneys will not take the case unless it is a large amount of money and if an attorney were to take the case they would charge $200 an hour and require a minimum of ten hours and there is no guarantee that you will win the case and if you loose it will cost you even more money. That is how they make their money.
Companies like Unifund should not be allowed to continue to operate and there should be tougher collection laws for the original creditors and collection agencies. Here is my suggestions:
The original creditor and collection agencies must make several attempts to collect the debt and must be able to show proof. Copies of collection letters should only be accepted by a court if they are accompanied by a certified mail receipt. Without that there is no proof that they sent the letter (s) and how many letters they sent and when they sent them because with a computer they can put what ever date they want on the letter.
The collection agency should be required to obtain a collection license from the state that the debtor lives in.
They should not be allowed to automatically pass it off to an attorney to have them write a scare letter.
They should not be able to forget about the debt and come back years later before the statute of limitation runs out and charge you interest for those years when they forgot about it regardless of what the contract says. The statute of limitation is usually ten years and what is to stop them from waiting eight or nine years to come back and try to collect the money and charge you eight or nine years worth of interest when they have forgot about it and made not attempt to collect it? Do not give me the favorite the debtor skipped out on me speech because how are you going to file a lawsuit and/or garnishment against someone if you do not know where they are? I do not think that you can receive a judgment or garnishment if the defendant can not be served. Additionally if they wait several years to try to collect it and take it to court they should be responsible for their own court cost and attorneys fees because it is not my fault they forgot about it and did not try to settle before now.
These tough laws will make it harder for companies like Unifund to profit by buying up bad debt that is several years old and charging unfair interest.
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