small value debt collection

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#622706 10-May-2012 09:44

As far as I can tell, Aaron-afk did not breach any privacy act issues, names were only added after it had been through the public system (IE judgement entered/obtained in the courts and hence is in the public domain).

The credit reporting privacy act was only just coming into force when I left credit management, so my memory of it is a little vague, but again, all names were in the public domain (and could even be put in the local newspaper), so not sure how a privacy breach occured.

I also think it falls outside the credit reporting act and the privacy act as the debt was incurred by deception, not be breach of a credit contract (arguably, there is contract law that could apply to trademe sales I guess, but its a stretch to include credit act in them).

I have no problem with naming and shaming dishonest people. We get them signing up for membership, hiring movies and or games (usually games) then buggering off, essentially theft. The police consider it a civil matter (wonder if they would consider it a civil matter if I did that to Budget rent a car) so its over to Baycorp to collect our debt. Ofcourse, it doesn't stop me phoning round the local shops and passing on their details to stop them doing it again, is it right, not really, but is it really "wrong"?

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#622892 10-May-2012 14:57

bigcity: do you have any examples of dirty tactics used?

i can understand calling the family being harrasment to an extent especially if the family are not in contact with them or don't know who they are

as for disclosing someones debt i think that is stupid and 'tough ****'

as for that us law you mentioned, well that is just ridiculous. You could move there and get rich just by screwing people?

don't f with people if you don't want to be f'd with yourself.

My sister had living with her a person who took out a loan from one of those "payday advance" places. When that person didn't repay the debt, the company sent round a debt collector to repossess property, despite that they had no court bailiff, and no security agreement (therefore legally were not entitled to take anything). The debt collector stood at the door talking to my sister (who had nothing to do with the debt) claiming that if she didn't hand over her TV, he would go back to his depot, get a trailer, and clear out her house. In terms of the debt, he had added collection costs equivalent to the entire debt (also illegal) and was all round just a scummy thug. Remember: he's talking to, and threatening, someone who doesn't have any connection with the debt or his client. In the end, he scared her so much that she let him take her kids' TV (and some other stuff). Inevitably, the deadbeat that didn't pay her loan didn't pay that either and they sold the stuff. I actually advised her to file a police report for theft against both the debt collector (which would end his career, as debt collectors legally cannot operate with a criminal record for theft or obtaining by deception) and the finance company, but she is unfortunately too lazy to do so.

sen8or: As far as I can tell, Aaron-afk did not breach any privacy act issues, names were only added after it had been through the public system (IE judgement entered/obtained in the courts and hence is in the public domain).

The credit reporting privacy act was only just coming into force when I left credit management, so my memory of it is a little vague, but again, all names were in the public domain (and could even be put in the local newspaper), so not sure how a privacy breach occured.

I also think it falls outside the credit reporting act and the privacy act as the debt was incurred by deception, not be breach of a credit contract (arguably, there is contract law that could apply to trademe sales I guess, but its a stretch to include credit act in them).

I have no problem with naming and shaming dishonest people. We get them signing up for membership, hiring movies and or games (usually games) then buggering off, essentially theft. The police consider it a civil matter (wonder if they would consider it a civil matter if I did that to Budget rent a car) so its over to Baycorp to collect our debt. Ofcourse, it doesn't stop me phoning round the local shops and passing on their details to stop them doing it again, is it right, not really, but is it really "wrong"?

In his case, he breached the Privacy Act by using an insider at a bank to get the name of the dodgy fellow using their name and account number, rather then following correct process and getting a court order and subpoenaing the name from the bank. The Credit Reporting Privacy Code applies because it's applicable to debt collectors too, not just credit reporters - and one thing you cannot do under it is disclose details of a debt to unrelated parties, such as the dodgy person's employer (which he did). The Fair Trading Act was breached because he told the debtor that he would go to court and costs would be added, which the Ministry of Consumer Affairs is quite clear that while you can threaten court action, you cannot threaten a specific outcome (such as costs being imposed) as you don't actually know what the court may decide.

For what it's worth though, there is a tough balance to be maintained. Without knowing the specifics of why someone got into debt, the temptation to automatically assume that it's because they're a deadbeat is quite high, and that can have a pretty big impact on how you try to address the problem. While the law does unfortunately protect deadbeats quite a lot, that's just the consequence of trying to protect people who simply fall on hard times (like redundancy) and just want a fair deal in trying to sort things out with their creditors.

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#622902 10-May-2012 15:09

For what it's worth though, there is a tough balance to be maintained. Without knowing the specifics of why someone got into debt, the temptation to automatically assume that it's because they're a deadbeat is quite high, and that can have a pretty big impact on how you try to address the problem. While the law does unfortunately protect deadbeats quite a lot, that's just the consequence of trying to protect people who simply fall on hard times (like redundancy) and just want a fair deal in trying to sort things out with their creditors.

Actually I can't speak for anyone else, but a deadbeat is someone who owes money, admits they owe it, and makes promises and doesn't keep them or outrightly lies.

In the situation with your sister, if her boyfriend is in a defacto relationship, she is actually liable for the debt as well as I understand it.

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#622931 10-May-2012 15:43

networkn:

For what it's worth though, there is a tough balance to be maintained. Without knowing the specifics of why someone got into debt, the temptation to automatically assume that it's because they're a deadbeat is quite high, and that can have a pretty big impact on how you try to address the problem. While the law does unfortunately protect deadbeats quite a lot, that's just the consequence of trying to protect people who simply fall on hard times (like redundancy) and just want a fair deal in trying to sort things out with their creditors.

Actually I can't speak for anyone else, but a deadbeat is someone who owes money, admits they owe it, and makes promises and doesn't keep them or outrightly lies.

In the situation with your sister, if her boyfriend is in a defacto relationship, she is actually liable for the debt as well as I understand it.

Way to assume there, fella. I said "living in the same house". Absolutely nothing to do with any sort of relationship, and wasn't even implied at any point in my story.

Which proves my point most aptly about why the law needs to be overprotective - silly assumptions like the one above can result in people being affected who have absolutely nothing to do with the business relationship.

Also, no, debts do not automatically become shared in a relationship anyway. They only become shared if they relate to property jointly owned or business jointly performed, credit obtained for joint purposes, or for the purposes of bringing up children. Anything else remains individual problems.

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#622935 10-May-2012 15:45

Kynaar, did you not see the *IF*? Perhaps you could read the comments made by people more carefully before jumping down their throats! Perhaps it's a touchy subject for you.

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#622947 10-May-2012 15:58

Kyanar: Also, no, debts do not automatically become shared in a relationship anyway. They only become shared if they relate to property jointly owned or business jointly performed, credit obtained for joint purposes, or for the purposes of bringing up children. Anything else remains individual problems.

I regularly have coffee with management from one of the major consumer finance companies (not clients of ours, just as friends). They do a lot of repos/bad debt write offs, and it's amazing the preconceptions I had, and what is and isn't allowed by law, when trying to recoup your money.

I'd outline them here, however, I can't remember them verbatim...

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#622990 10-May-2012 16:35

networkn: Kynaar, did you not see the *IF*? Perhaps you could read the comments made by people more carefully before jumping down their throats! Perhaps it's a touchy subject for you.

No, you said "if her boyfriend...blah blah". Which is completely nothing to do with the story, so it's not surprising I'd come to the conclusion you'd made an erroneous assumption and gone on about that.

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bigcity

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#623010 10-May-2012 16:51

Yes i can see problems with the situation with your sister. You should not have your possession reposesed just because you are living in the same house as some deadbeat who didn't pay back his loan. I also think there are laws surrounding debt collection that are too soft.

I know people get into debt for different reasons (in terms of having a loan) so there has to be some line of what is reasonable. However you still owe that money in the end. People need to take responsibility for themselves. House burnt down and you didn't have insurance, now your in debt, sorry I don't give a f.... Like it or not my opinion is the same for people who didn't have insurance when the earthquake struck. That is the risk you took, deal with it.

Anyway this debt is different from that, purely obtained by deception. They listed 3 of the same laptop on trademe within a few days, sold it to three different people and never sent it and stole a total of about $450. The police are f....... useless. I understand if Joe Blogs lost money on trademe they have bigger things to deal with. But this was different for reasons I am not sure I should discuss. I am sure if I stole a chocolate bar from the warehouse they would be there in an instant. Yet they can't chase this up when the guy is right under their f...... nose. I don't wish to say anymore.

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#623019 10-May-2012 17:02

Oh I understand what you mean completely bigcity, and I actually agree that when we're talking about cases of outright fraud like you describe, there is no cut and dry about it - the reasons for why the money is owed is obvious, and absolutely there is very little chance of any mitigating circumstances. The only thing I would say is that this should be an issue for the police, and I absolutely think that they absolutely should be expected to support you in getting your money back.

Also, I agree that the debt being owed is still owed regardless of the circumstances - my view is simply that in unexpected situations the creditor should take that into account and work with the debtor to come to a solution rather than jumping to debt collectors or thug collectors - in the long run it's better for them as they get the whole amount they're owed back without having to worry about collectors and court costs, etc - and in some cases they can even get it back faster. I've been in that situation before, had a few bills and got laid off - things went south and a few ended up in collections. Within two years they were all paid off in full (some of them in the many thousand dollar range) and the last words I heard from a debt collector were "you were supposed to stop paying us last April, we need your account details to refund the overpayment".

Incidentally, you say "like it or not" - definitely - I don't feel it should be the taxpayer's responsibility to pay for building people a new house (or even buying their old one) after they lost the uninsured house they owned in an earthquake - though I kind of support the government's "buy the house and then tear the insurance company who covers it a new one" scheme. As it is, every insured person (i.e. responsible homeowners) are being almost cripplingly penalised to pay for the rebuild.

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#623028 10-May-2012 17:16

A person is not a deadbeat if they get themselves into debt for reasons beyond their control and then make reasonable efforts to repay the debt and communicate. Deadbeats are the people who don't make those efforts and therefore debt collection from deadbeats should be handled differently. We are just too soft on everything in NZ it makes me ill.

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#623033 10-May-2012 17:26

i guess the reason some of them go straight to 'thug collectors' is because they are so used to being stuffed around and the genuine people who just happen to be in a bad financial position but have no problem making sure it is payed of eventually are few and far between.

They were looking for the guy anyway. I understand they have other things to do completely and tried to be as non-hassling as possible, yet every time I spoke to them it felt like I was hassling them and they didn't really care. They took my number and implied they would let me know when they found him. As I was looking for him myself I told them the situation and everything I knew about him, which was quite a bit. I even tracked down his car which they had a public notice about and passed the information on. In the end they found him. Guess what? Not a f...... word.

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#623037 10-May-2012 17:29

networkn: A person is not a deadbeat if they get themselves into debt for reasons beyond their control and then make reasonable efforts to repay the debt and communicate. Deadbeats are the people who don't make those efforts and therefore debt collection from deadbeats should be handled differently. We are just too soft on everything in NZ it makes me ill.

I follow the same line of thought on the term 'deadbeat'. And yes we are certainly soft on quite a few things, I guess some of that is what the media exposes which may or may not give an incorrect perception on things as a whole. I can't even begin to understand the laws in the US.

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#623059 10-May-2012 17:56

The examples about harrasment in the US and 10K fines, I don't believe are completely accurate, and I believe the number of times 1 call has resulted in that action would be next to nill. 10K fines are reserved for ongoing long term abusive and extreme cases, and from what I can see most of the fines have been donated to charities rather than the debtor themselves.

bigcity

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#623063 10-May-2012 18:02

this has made me realize how easy it is to take money of people from trade me.

Set up fake account, easy. Use proxy easy. Fake email easy. Does not need address verification easy. (or if you are address verified just move flats). Use fake name. Give bank account number don't include name assigned to account with details.

They buyer knows basically nothing about the person that took their money. The only real piece of info they have is a bank account number which they can't do anything with.
The buyer won't be able to do anything with the police because they don't care.
The buyer will contact trademe who may or may not ban the fake account.

The buyer could if the seller is registered with a valid and current address (which you would have to be pretty dumb to do when stealing money) request trademe to release the address of the person for the purposes of taking them to court (which will cost more than you lost in the first place and use a significant amount of your time).

I am not sure what the trademe investigation team do, they told me they would try calling him and said he wasn't answering (really?) they also said they had him on total lock down at their end because he could not login to his account (which he now probably couldn't give a s... about). They then said there is nothing else they can do. I guess it sucks for them the police don't care unless it is high value. But considering they are an investigation team and it is there job I don't see why they couldn't find details I easily found on google. Maybe part of what is holding them back is laws. The laws get really technical when you look into them.

What is stopping someone from setting up a fake account and stealing a few hundred $ of someone? basically nothing.

Oh I forgot, if it is a new account they make you take a photo of the item you are selling next to a current newspaper showing the date on the news paper. HAHAHA

They only care if it is a substantial multi thousand $ amount or is continual multiple offending which starts reaching several thousand. Taking $130 or so of someone, piece of pizz.

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#623069 10-May-2012 18:06

bigcity: this has made me realize how easy it is to take money of people from trade me.

Set up fake account, easy. Use proxy easy. Fake email easy. Does not need address verification easy. (or if you are address verified just move flats). Use fake name. Give bank account number don't include name assigned to account with details.

Oh I forgot, if it is a new account they make you take a photo of the item you are selling next to a current newspaper showing the date on the news paper. HAHAHA

They only care if it is a substantial multi thousand $ amount or is continual multiple offending which starts reaching several thousand. Taking $130 or so of someone, piece of pizz.

I don't know about you, excluding my morals stopping me from ripping people off, would I risk a criminal conviction over a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars, for all the trouble it can cause? Nope.

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