What is a debt buyer and what do they have to prove about ownership when they sue me?

hey guys welcome to this video my name is john watts i'm a consumer protection lawyer and we talk a lot about debt buyers and i thought it might be a good idea to just kind of define what that is and give some examples so a debt buyer is somebody kind of like the name suggests at least that claims to buy debt so we have companies like midland funding midland credit management portfolio recovery lvnv all these different companies out there and they will buy up these huge portfolios of accounts and so they'll say oh well we bought 100 million dollars worth of defaulted credit card debt for 2 million or 6 million or whatever you know 5 cents on the dollar ten cents on the dollar and now we own it okay and so then what do they do well sometimes they collect their own debt okay so like a portfolio recovery will call you they'll write you letters and they'll sue you and then other companies may sort of farm out the actual collection but then they sue in their own name against you and they're all debt buyers they're all considered debt collectors under the fdcpa now they would argue about that they would say oh no we're debt buyers we're not considered debt collectors yeah there's a crazy opinion or two out there on that but the vast majority of opinions recognize debt buyers are debt collectors under the fdcpa fair debt collection practices there so they claim to buy this debt and why do i keep saying they claim to because when it comes time for court when they sue you and it comes time to prove their case they have to prove they own the debt it just kind of makes logical sense i mean i never had a credit card with portfolio recovery or midland funding of midland credit management but yet they're coming in suing saying hey john watts didn't pay that credit card i'm like well i didn't have a credit card with you they go oh well it's okay because we bought it in our response and we've been doing this for well over a decade i mean there's nothing tricky about it all the debt buyers in alabama that sue they know this is what we do say prove it now you would think if they bought it that would be pretty easy to prove i mean if somebody said to me john proved that you own your house that you're living in well i mean if i claim to own it it'd be pretty easy for me to prove it here's the deed you know let me show you where i'm on the title to this thing okay well john proved that you own your car well i've got the title to the car okay and so this is not challenging or some you know herculean effort that we're putting them through just prove you own it you say you bought this little synchrony bank or chase or capital one or whatever it is now prove it and that's where they struggle and we've talked about this in other videos whether they are unable to prove it because they literally don't have the proof or whether they do have it but they're just unwilling to prove it it doesn't really matter because they sue us and they don't have proof where they're not willing to prove it that's a big problem for them after the case is over and it's a problem for them with credit reporting and all sorts of consequences of doing those types of just bogus lawsuits okay now why can't they prove it or why won't they prove it well the ultimate proof will be what's called the purchase agreement that's called different things but basically it's the contract where they buy this you know 100 million dollars worth of debts from synchrony bank that's the contract that says synchrony bank is selling to portfolio recovery why don't they just bring that contract because usually in that contract it'll say something where synchrony bank says hey we make no representations that any of the documents we're giving you any of the information we're giving you is accurate why would they do that well put yourself in synchrony bank or capital one or whoever the original creditor is put yourself in their shoes and you're selling a hundred million dollars 500 million dollars for five cents on the dollar now if you're taking that big of a hit are you really going to put in the contract oh i swear to you every piece of information is accurate and we'll back it up a hundred percent if you need any witnesses we'll absolutely be there if we've made any mistakes we'll buy the debt back from you we're selling this with the most fantastic warranty ever well think about in terms of a car okay if you've got let's use you know a 10 000 car i don't know are there any new cars for ten thousand probably not let's say twenty thousand okay and so i buy a twenty thousand dollar car and i'm selling it to you for one thousand dollars that'd be five cents on the dollar am i really going to give you this fantastic warranty about oh the transmission's in great shape the tires are in great shape the motor is in great shape that everything's a great ship now what am i going to do well you know almost all used cars unless they're very very new or sold as is it's like hey look i mean you check it out you make your own decision on it okay and that's what these original creditors do it's like why would they want to put themselves on the hook by swearing that all the information is correct all the documents are correct that it's not off even to one penny they're just not real interested in doing that and you can imagine if they did that they would want more money paid not five cents on the dollar or one cent on the dollar maybe it's 10 cents or 20 cents or 30 cents on the dollar and so this is why the debt buyers don't want to introduce that into evidence because they're coming into court and they're saying to the judge look i got all these these documents all these statements and these are from the original credit and they're absolutely accurate because they're from the original creditor well if the original creditor in that contract says hey but buddy we don't make any representations that any of this stuff is accurate and we don't make any promises to you you're buying it as is well that's kind of hard for the debt buyer to come in and say well this is absolutely the gospel truth when the contract says it's not so i just want to give you this sort of overview about debt buyers you know these are people who claim to buy debt first of all they're subject to the fdcpa assuming it's a consumer debt the fair debt collection practices act and when they sue you one defense that you may have is do they actually own the debt they may have other defenses like statute of limitation you know have you already paid off the debt i mean there's all sorts of defenses you may have but that's a big one does this debt buyer own the debt because yeah maybe i owe synchrony bank for that you know store credit card i had but do i owe midland or calvary or lvnv funding or portfolio or whoever it might be that's suing me that's the question so i hope that you find this helpful and i'll talk to you next video i appreciate you watching this one bye

Channel: Alabama Consumer Protection Lawyers

Views: 9,036

Keywords: john watts, stan herring, birmingham, alabama, lawyer, madison, attorney, watts & herring, debt buyer, FDCPA

Id: Vn3MPKMV12U

Length: 7min 33sec (453 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020