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(USGovernment-News.Com, July 18, 2013 ) Albuquerque, NM -- The Federal Trade Commission fined the Expert Global solutions for violating what is called the Fair Debt Collection Practice Act. The company is the world's largest debt collection agency, and is now being sued for $3.2 million.
The complaint levied by the FTC stated that Expert Global Solutions was calling consumers on multiple occasions throughout the day. The company was also not discontinuing calls after being asked to stop. Employers were said to prohibit such calling, but somewhere along the line callers were certainly enticed or passively instructed to not avoid calling multiple times per day.
"The key practice we saw was calling too much," says Christopher Koegel of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.
The company would not discontinue calls even when a consumer denied owing any debt. Under such orders the company must discontinue calls or suspend efforts until the investigation that concludes guilt of the consumer is clear.
Other rules which the group did not discontinue were: Falsely claiming they would not call the number, not harass or abuse the individual called, not contact third parties regarding the debt owed, and record at least 75% of all debt collection calls.
The complaint stems from multiple varying sources against Expert Global Solutions, which is based in Plano, Texas. The agency being sued sends a clear warning to companies regarding how to treat the supposed in-debt customers. "We receive more complaints about debt collection than any other industry," says Koegel. "The whole industry should sit up and take notice that the FTC is taking this very seriously."
Expert Global Solutions released this statement: "We are pleased to have resolved this matter with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and to have this legacy issue, dating back to 2008, behind us. We cooperated fully with the FTC's 2010 investigation and have already implemented systems and procedures to help address their areas of concern. We believe that the quality of our consumer interaction is best-in-class in our industry today, and have worked hard over the past several years to help ensure compliance and fair treatment of consumers on all of our points of contact. As a leader in the industry, we look forward to continuing to work with the regulatory agencies on important matters of compliance and quality, and value the role these agencies play in the collections industry."
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