New York AG trying to shut down debt collector accused of abusing and harassing people

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo is trying to shut down Benning-Smith Group, a large debt collection conglomerate that operates under 13 different trade names. Cuomo’s office has received 850 complaints against debt collectors operating under the Benning-Smith umbrella. Cuomo claims that there have been approximately 1,000 violations of state and federal law in New York alone and his staff has also spoken to people from Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas who claim they were victims. 

Cuomo alleges that Benning-Smith collectors used outrageous and illegal collection techniques. One collector repeated the name of a consumer’s daughter and described sexual attacks he would commit against her unless a debt was paid, Cuomo said. Other collectors called consumers drunks, deadbeats and in one case a low-life piece of trash. One allegedly told a woman he would pay the debt himself if the consumer and her husband would have sex with him, the attorney general said. And in an answering machine tape that Cuomo provided to The Associated Press, an unidentified collection agent told a New York grandmother of seven in 2006: “You are totally ghetto. … Learn English; get an education instead of just sitting on your fat derriere all day long.” The caller then insulted her pronunciation of “plan” and called her an “uneducated reject. … Get a real job, get an education and learn to take care of your responsibility like a grown adult would.” The call was over a $182 debt that the woman, 50-year-old Dorothy Gilbert, of Rochester, had paid more than a year before. ”I know I didn’t sleep for a couple of nights,” Gilbert told the AP on Tuesday. “What if it was a person who couldn’t take that kind of talk? Or someone with a bad heart or mentally imbalanced or very depressed? Then you could be looking at murder.”

All of the alleged conduct described above is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If you have suffered through similar abuse or harassment, you are entitled to sue the offending debt collector under the FDCPA and receive money damages if you win your case. If you live in Minnesota and have been abused or harassed by a debt collector, feel free to contact me for a free case review.

NPR–NY: Debt collector used sex threats, harassment