Love Society

By: Lance Winslow

In the United States we have laws against unlawful lending and taking advantage of others. One of the agencies, which enforce these laws, is the Federal Trade Commission. This is partly because they are in-charge of false and misleading advertising. This is all well and good except personally I have come to not trust the FTC at all. It seems they so often embellish their actions and enforcement by sending out press releases to mass media outlets. Your basic grandstanding BS in my professional and reality based observational opinion. Recently in a report to the US Congress the FTC stated:

Preventing Deceptive Lending, Deceptive Debt Counseling, and Illegal Debt Collection

“The FTC pursues unscrupulous lenders who deceive consumers about loan Practices, terms, rates, and fees, and bogus organizations that target consumers with bad credit or significant debt, promising to help them obtain credit or manage their debt. In 2005, the FTC brought several cases against debt counseling, debt collection, and other financial services companies engaged in deceptive or illegal practices.”

Let’s see here several cases, as in 3-cases? Why is this news? Why is this in an official report to Congress? Why is this in a budget justification paper for their 13-million dollar increased budget for FY 2007? They go on in the report to state:

“In one case, the FTC charged a company with falsely promoting itself as a nonprofit credit counseling organization. The judge presiding over the company s bankruptcy case allowed the transfer of client accounts to a legitimate third-party credit counselor, protecting consumers who otherwise might have been stranded if it went out of business. In July 2005, the FTC won a $10.2 million judgment against a debt collection operation and its principals; the judgment amount represented the estimated amount of consumer injury. This was the largest judgment in FTC history for violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In addition, a federal district court judge permanently banned the defendants from engaging in debt collection in the future.”

So basically there were three cases and they are trumping the one case, as proof that they are doing something, well good for them, yet in reality debt counseling is needed for Americans. America is in debt and if such cases or a single case is touted so highly it hurts all the legitimate companies and non-profit groups out there from doing their efforts to slow the outrageous debt amongst our citizenry. So, whereas this maybe a good thing, this particular case, it sends the wrong message to the consumer and scares them from seeking help to get out of debt. Therefore maybe we should put the FTC in debt by reducing their budget for FY 2007 by 50% and see how they deal with it? Fair is Fair in debt counseling education right? Consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

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