Complaint Review: United Recovery Systems

Well Screwed I can only guess that you work for this scumbag company. Must be tough to be hated by everyone on earth, I bet your mommy is proud. Actually she probably lies to her friends about what kind of work you do. You're a bottom feeder, and you make your money from the pain and suffering of others, So Karma is not your friend..

I'm sure that everyone who borrowed money had every intention to pay it back, but then things turned bad for them. I'm sure your business as a vulture is booming but the rest of us are struggling. As far as trying to guilt the public? I couldn't care less if you or the creditors get paid. Nobody looks down on Trump and he has gone into bankruptcy more than once.

The complaint is about your company's tactics. You seem to think you have the right to do whatever you want, but in fact you don't. It is exactly your tactics that makes people not even care if the money gets paid back. Fortunately I am not one of your victims but I know someone who is, and watching them being stressed and harassed by you has brought me to their side. He didn't plan to get sick, and his wife didn't even think about the not using the credit card when they asked her for it at the hospital because she was too worried about losing her husband. They didn't know ahead of time that they would get stuck with huge medical bills even though they have supposedly good insurance, and his condition doesn't need the additional stress that you cause. I wonder how many people you have killed through your tactics? Never occurred to you they might be in this situation because they are sick and frail. Well you can answer to GOD for those...

All that your constant calls and abuse have done was make them not care about paying, and their lawyer showed them how to protect themselves from any and all creditors. We all see the scam in creditors now. I mean what is the point raising interest rates to 30+% when they couldn't afford 10%. I now join my friend in not caring about credit scores anymore. I will buy only what I can afford. I already have 5 cars and 2 houses, so what do I need credit for? I have used my cards to try and keep my score above 800, but now I don't care, and I have your company to thank for setting me free... Thank you, and may GOD have mercy on your soul...

I have to say that ordinarily I would have agreed that people should pay back what they borrowed, but not anymore. The playing field is clearly not level. Most people who are in these situations are there because the big banks and brokers decided to break the rules of decency and put people into mortgages that they knew the customers couldn't pay. (I bet you didn't know that during the housing boom the lenders actually calculated being able to sell foreclosed properties at a higher market value into their profit projections) , in addition they took all these mortgages that they knew were bad and repackaged them and sold them to an unsuspecting puplic, and then on top of that they decided to gamble with credit swaps. After they destroyed our economy and put people out of work so that those people could no longer pay their bills they convinced the government to give (and yes I said "give") them BILLIONS of dollars to get out of their DEBT. So is it fair that they get bailed out and then look down their noses at the people whos lives they destroyed through their reckless and immoral behavior while getting bailed out at the same time? I say if you can't pay then walk away, don't feel bad about it. I heard members of congress saying that we should remove the negative stigma of bankruptcy because they wanted the car companies to go down, so doesn't that apply to the general public too? We already know the government won't let the banks fail so since I am now in debt by almost $100,000 from our defecit, then I say I already paid my bank back....

Two months after 3/1 you come back with the same commissioned bill collector drivel here on 5/1. Let me repeat myself genius, "THE BURDEN OF PROOF RESTS WITH UNITED RECOVERY SYSTEMS TO SUCCESSFULLY WIN A DEFAULT JUDGMENT VS JOE DEBTOR. UNTIL THEN, YOUR AGENCY IS ENTITLED TO SQUAT."

How do you honestly know the accuracy of the accounts in your office? That is why there is discovery in civil court. If you want to truly judge debtors, earn a law degree and work your way up to a civil court judge. Your same drivel is redundant and no one cares. All consumers/debtors care about is learning their rights against FDCPA violating agencies and how to fight back. My track record of "out of court settlements" and handling collection issues pro se speaks for itself. I suppose if and when one of my "alleged accounts" finds its way into URS, we'll see who submits.

But of course you have a problem with that as it is a thorn in your side. It helps prevent the abuse such as these ridiculous posts of yours.

I am totally stunned at the response to this thread. Somehow, somewhere everyone has look past the original complaint.

#1 - you borrowed money from XYZ.
#2 - with that money, you bought XYZ1
#3 - you enjoy XYSZ1
#3 - time comes to start paying back XYZ for XYZ1
#4 - you can't
#5 - yes, life is tough right now
#6 - calls from XYZ asking for payment
#7 - you finally answer and say you can't pay this bill
#8 - XYZ says they loaned you the money in good faith
#9 - you cry and scream you cant pay it, and you have all these "supposed" laws to back you up
#10 - you feel you shouldn't have to pay because of all of these "supposed laws"
#11 - Like #5, life is tough right now. You have no job, losing th house etc, but it's ok to tel XYZ or their agent) that they are low lifes, bottom sucking @$%%#.
#12 - lets pull out the "law" and "colletcion law"
#13 - you decide to take "legal action" to these horrible people (the "collecotrs)
#14 - you read the "suggestions" here (by wanna be lawyers)
#15 - you feel you have a "right" to not pay your debt
#16 - you will lose - I'm sorry
#17 - BOTTOM LINE - you borrowed this money.
#19 - you promised to pay back what you had spent
#20 - and your question is?????....

Yea, take this nitwits above advice....play the game....it's everyone elses fault you got in debt. Fight it, but really....did you not take the loan out for this (whatever it is).

Who do you think will pay for this advise you have been given. Go ahead and"fight" this....what you all dont realize is that you failure to pay your debts adds on to my financial responsiibiltly .

And to you who has this great advice on how to get out of your obligations, I cant believe for a second you really know what you are talking about. You are a "wanna be lawyer". My guess you are about 12 years old who has access to Google. Please, go to bed, you are giving advice to people who are truly in trouble.

Unlike "Screwed", you seem like a reasonable individual so I will respond to your question as respectfully as possible.

First off, the biggest damage to one's Credit Bureau Report is done long before chargeoff (which stays for 7 years on CBR) when you folks usually start calling from 3rd Party Agencies. The first 31-60 days of default (as opposed to chargeoff) dip one's credit score most substantially when the accounts are first reported on one's CBR as delinquent. I held high 700's credit score for 2 decades. Only when I had to choose to pay necessities after a loss of income in 2006 did I ever have a creditor call me let alone a 3rd party collector. Lets forget about morals and "doing the right thing." There's hypocrisy concerning creditors,debtors,credit bureaus and 3rd party collectors so lets focus on one's credit.

When someone pays a chargeoff, the damage is done already prior to paying. If the collection agency credit reported it as a tradeline, you are stuck with a "paid collections account" on your CBR which causes additional harm as opposed to "walking away" and not reaging it by paying.Even worse is settling so I agree with avoiding Debt settlement and CCCS companies. They merely DELAY the credit recovery process and if the debtor saves over $600, they get hit with a double whammy in the form of a 1099 IRS Form demanding you to claim x amount of dollars as "unearned income." The only purpose of CCCS is when one decides to file bankruptcy. Debtors are required to sit through a phone or in person meeting with a state approved Consumer Credit Counseling Services company prior to filing. You must get a certificate of completion form before retaining an attorney. So I pose this question to "Puzzled". If there wasn't any commission in it for you and a close one can't pay their unsecured debts off anytime in this lifetime and can only make paltry payments (which again reage and keep CBR in trash), would you encourage them to file Chapter 7? If you are reasonable, you'd say yes. As far as my earning money through "out of court settlements" for collector violations. If you abide by the FDCPA, people like myself have no claim.

why is it that there are soooo many people out there trying to show the general public how to screw creditors out of their accounts? When will the day come that we will see an "advocate" or a debt counselor stand up and say "do get out of the situation you are in, just pay the bill?" We wont, due to the fact that they would be out the money that consumers pay them for their services. You think that they do it for free? Consumers need to live up to their contractual obligations, creditors need to be a bit more flexible and, advocates and debt management need to stop giving people the impression that everything will be fine if debtors stop paying...in all honesty, i have gotten more people to file complaints on their debt management agencies than i do on bill collectors! its much more profitable!!! Just pay your bills or be cooperative to get the account resolved.

When United Recovery Systems successfully wins a default judgment in civil court is the first and only time United Recovery Systems is entitled to their money. Until then, any alleged debt in your office is hearsay. Can you get all the authentic documents including itemized breakdowns of monthly balance from inception to present in discovery? Can you get a copy of the ORIGINAL contract? Can you show proof of the Bill of Sales concerning Cap One along with every junk debt buyer who purchased the account from the prior creditor? The burden of proof rests with URS, not Joe Debtor. So for the last time....win a default judgment vs Joe Debtor in Civil Court. Otherwise, URS is entitled to squat!

How to handle an initial United Recovery Systems dunning letter where you have 30 days to request validation under FDCPA.Send certified mail return receipt requested.

__________

Joe Consumer
3/x/09
To United Recovery Systems
File # _______

I am disputing the validity of your claim concerning the alleged Capitol One account for X amount of dollars. I trust that this request for validation will be honored in full compliance with the FDCPA (section 809).

__________

I guess I'm not surprised, the responses don't address one of the original comments....nothing about how right or wrong URS is, bottom line is why won't anyone responding to the complaints address the issue....if you have a problem with URS, that means you DID NOT PAY YOU BILLS/OBILIGATIONS!

Don't give me the crap about your 'RIGHTS" now. You charged its, you didn't pay for it, and now you want the bill to "go away"?

And you wonder why the country is in the crapper.

When you sign settlement confidentiality agreements with agencies for FDCPA violations on your voicemail, you need to keep confidentiality.Meaning you don't give SPECIFIC names of collectors to the public. Then a check for x amount of dollars is mailed to you. I will say this much, the creditors were citibank and chase and these debts went to various 3rd party agencies after they charged off. Collectors repeatedly left voice mail messages that violated FDCPA compliance (24 hour urgency notice, legal dept., papers going to be filed in 24 hours,etc.). The agency's compliance directors had no choice after listening. The maximum amount a debtor can get in court per case is $1000 plus attorney fees.Some will way take it to federal court. I'm not greedy. I take an amount under $1000 in negotiating over the phone and wait for the account to go to the next agency. I never leave my home and I get paid. Therefore, I always demand an amount a bit less than $1000 (exact amount breaks my confidentiality agreement).

The compliance director knowing I have rock solid evidence has been consistently willing to cut a check to avoid flying out of the area to court and risk further exposure. I don't get greedy and demand the $1000. Regardless, the agency gets $0 from me and I MAKE MONEY due to their illegal tactics. Have you ever answered a summons as a pro se defendant? My Sworn Denial Letter description is accurate. I also said discovery motions are determined by your local jurisdiction (# of questions and demands you can make in discovery varies from state to state). The Production of Documents and Requests for Admissions have to be properly formatted per your courts jurisdiction.

I appreciate your research on the Fair Credit Reporting Act. I explained that INACTIVITY (no payment after date of chargeoff) means the account is reported as a chargeoff for 7 years and falls off. However, your research doesn't account for when someone pays a collections account. The agency can report the account as a collections account which is a different tradeline from that of the original creditor if one pays a collection agency. Therefore, paying a charge off in collections will show as "paid collections account" for an additional 7 years if the collection agency reported it as tradeline. I've never worried about or had to bother with FCRA issues and admit my knack is with FDCPA. Face it, if your account is in collections, your CBR is probably shot anyhow. Therefore, I only concern myself with FDCPA issues which are EASIEST to get collectors in trouble on. I'll admit my credit is shot after many years of high 700's FICO once I decided to pay my necessities only under a tough stretch. All you need to know my friend is I've won way more money in FDCPA damages than I've paid any 3rd party agency or law firm which is $0.

Have you actually read the FDCPA or the FCRA..Thats the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act? I doubt your credentials are as you are reporting here, because of some very basic(and major) errors on your part. I am not going to get into where you basically were providing legal advise, and throwing around terms and definitions that are not exactly correct. Instead focus more on your lack of understanding on the FCRA. Which I do understand is not in your name, however they go hand-in-hand and directly relate to the "advise" you are giving here.

"Again, chargeoffs or date of last activity is only credit reported for 7 years. If you go 4 years without paying and pay these scumbags, your account will stay on your CBR now for ELEVEN years through the reaging of your 4 year old debt by paying and making the debt look current.REAGING again will lower your credit score."

This is 100% FALSE. NOTHING you do can reage your account. You could pay it off 1 day before it is scheduled to come off and it will still come off the next day. In fact if a creditor attempts to reage the account they are in violation of the FCRA.
--------------------------
605.
Requirements relating to information contained in consumer reports
[15 U.S.C. 1681c]
(a) Information excluded from consumer reports.
(4) Accounts placed for collection or charged to profit and loss which antedate the report by more than seven years.

(c) Running of Reporting Period
(1) In general. The 7-year period referred to in paragraphs (4) and (6) 3 of subsection (a) shall begin, with respect to any delinquent account that is placed for collection (internally or by referral to a third party, whichever is earlier), charged to profit and loss, or subjected to any similar action, upon the expiration of the 180-day period beginning on the date of the commencement of the delinquency which immediately preceded the collection activity, charge to profit and loss, or similar action.

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I'd be curious to know which creditor(s) and for how much you prevailed against for violations of the FDCPA.

I recently explained how this agency can be easily baited into FDCPA violations in a recent post on this very same company. Posted about a week ago. This punk kid had nothing to say to my advice other than "grow up and pay your bills." Typical reply of a commissioned bill collector making chump change and most likely overstepping FDCPA guidelines to make a few dollars in commission. I've beaten collection suits as a pro se defendant and have settled FDCPA violations with numerous compliance directors of agencies like this monetarily. I hope one of my accounts lands here since it will be another easy way to "supplement my income."

To start, ALWAYS send a debt validation request letter(dispute letter) WITHIN 30 days of their initial dunning letter.Say "alleged account", never acknowledge owing it. Send it certified mail return receipt requested.Most likely they won't bother responding and return it to the creditor. OR, they may continue to call. If they call after you receive your green card with their signature of receiving your letter including the date they signed it,they are in violation of the FDCPA without first validating it successfully.

Secondly, if you want to bait these people, your voice mail is your friend.Stay off the phone! It doesn't matter if you are a one party or two party state for taping calls. Voice mail messages DO NOT require consent to tape and are treated as 3rd party communication/disclosure.Guarantee one of their overzealous kids making chump change will make implied threats that are illegal (this is a legal matter,etc), false sense of urgency (URGENTLY need to respond in 24 hours) and misrepresenting themselves as attorneys or attorney (legal) assistants on voicemail.

Also, if they call your job, all you have to do is verbally say you cannot receive calls at work. Have a 3rd party coworker tell the collector this. Why? Many knucklehead collection employees have GED's who wear ankle bracelets and can't read at a 6th grade level let alone understand that a debtor doesn't have to tell them to stop calling at POE. Whenever it is advised by the debtor OR employee verbally they can't receive calls,calls to POE must stop. Otherwise,another FDCPA violation.

The Statute of Limitations. It's an AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE in court if you are ever sued. If the date of chargeoff or date of last payment is beyond your states statute of limitations, the debtor can simply bring it up as an affirmative defense. The case will be automatically dismissed and you can countersue by telling the judge the plaintiff acted in bad faith suing on an account they KNEW was beyond your jurisdictions statute of limitations.

As well, I'm not an attorney and this should not be taken as legal advice nor shall I be held liable to any advice used by readers here. If you are served a summons, DENY EVERYTHING in your answer to the summons. The burden of proof is on the creditor, not you. Also, file a typed and notorized SWORN DENIAL LETTER. Make sure you don't sign it until you are in front of the notory clerk at the courthouse.Send a copy to the plaintiff with other paperwork CMRRR. Sworn Denial letter eliminates the plaintiff/creditors sworn affidavit and forces a live witness to testify the authenticity of their paperwork in their claim. Sworn denial is a graduated denial that states "I deny this is my debt and if it is my debt, I deny that it is still a valid debt and if it is a valid debt, I deny the amount of the creditor claim is correct."

You can attack the witnesses through Discovery and Production of Documents and Requests for Admissions.Include these with your answer and sworn denial in filing and sending to plaintiff CMRRR as well. I ALWAYS recommend a consumer defense attorney as opposed to going pro se as most don't have the time or knowledge to know how to format these legal forms that consumer defense attorneys do. I personally like the challenge of going pro se and have had one creditor withdraw their suit because my discovery demands couldn't be met. The other one was dismissed because I broke the creditors "chain of custody" by having their witness admit to having paperwork that lacked authenticity and itemized accuracy. The goals of discovery are to attack the witnesses credibility. Demand they give detailed job description,length of time on the job, if they were aware of your alleged account at the time it was with them,any signed contracts,itemized balances from inception of debt to present,etc.Again, I advise people to hire a consumer defense attorney first. If you can't, look up your jurisdictions rules of civil procedure to properly format these legal forms. Sometimes the clerk will give you the forms themselves.

Back to the young man "Screwed" whose response is "grow up" like some cocky self righteous punk. Do you tell every debtor that pays you their account will be reaged for another seven years on their credit bureau report as a derrogatory collections account causing a drop in one's FICO score? I bet you never did. If you did, no one would pay you. Also, consumers who are nearing or past their states statute of limitations are hurt the worst by paying these scumbags. Again, chargeoffs or date of last activity is only credit reported for 7 years. If you go 4 years without paying and pay these scumbags, your account will stay on your CBR now for ELEVEN years through the reaging of your 4 year old debt by paying and making the debt look current.REAGING again will lower your credit score. When a bill collector tells you paying them helps your credit, they are 110% FULL OF CRAP for the reasons I just explained in this paragraph. TIME (inactivity for 7 years) is the only cure to a chargeoff. PAYING extends it 7 years! Also, settling for over a $600 savings is a double whammy. Any debt settled for over a $600 savings has to be reported to the IRS as "unearned income" on one's taxes as you'll get a guaranteed 1099 form in the mail come january of 2010.If you settle a 20K debt for 5K, you MUST claim 15K as "unearned income" on your 2009 taxes next january-april 15th (whenever you file 2009).