Question: What's the only thing slimier than an unethical debt collector?
Answer: An unethical debt collector's lawyer.
That probably was the main lesson gleaned from
our depositions yesterday in a lawsuit my wife and I have brought against NCO Financial Services, a debt-collection company based in Horsham, Pennsylvania, and Ingram & Associates, a Birmingham law firm.
We have written several times about the seamy side of the debt-collection industry. You can check out posts
here, here, and
here. Yesterday's deposition, showed us in an up close and personal way, just how low these dirtbags will go.
The chief villain this time was a lawyer from the Metairie, Louisiana, office of
Sessions Fishman Nathan & Israel, a firm representing NCO Financial Services. The guy's name is
Bryan C. Shartle, and we will have more on him in a minute.
The deposition itself--which lasted about six hours, including breaks--was rather uneventful. I suspect that's because the facts, as we know them so far, clearly show violations of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) and one or more state-law torts. But the real fireworks came afterwards.
As I noted yesterday, I suspect the deposition was scheduled--and captured on videotape--mostly for intimidation purposes. Our complaint, and the audiotapes we captured of our conversations with debt collectors, pretty much tell the story. There wasn't a whole lot of relevant information to be added from depositions.
That was apparent from some of the questions that came from
Wayne Morse, a lawyer with
Waldrep Stewart & Kendrick of Birmingham, representing Ingram & Associates. The depositions were conducted at his office.
Morse went over the complaint with both of us, apparently searching for any inaccuracies--however slight. He asked me to read one line that said we live in Birmingham.
"Do you actually reside in Birmingham?" he said.
"Well, our house is located in unincorporated Shelby County," I said.
"So, that statement is not accurate, is it?"
"Uh, well, our mailing address is Birmingham, AL 35242."
I don't know Morse's hourly fee, but I'm guessing he was hauling in $300 to $400 an hour to come up with penetrating questions like that.
At another point, Morse handed me a copy of
the bio from my blog and asked me to read it to see if there was anything inaccurate in it.
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www.legalschnauzer.blogspot.com
I live in Birmingham, Alabama, and work in higher education. I became interested in justice-related issues after experiencing gross judicial corruption in Alabama state courts. This corruption has a strong political component. The corrupt judges are (
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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
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