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Proposal allows
recording of collection agency calls
JOE MULLIN
Associated Press
March 8, 2007
More collection agencies are using abusive
phone tactics, and consumers should be allowed to secretly record
those phone calls to defend themselves if a debt dispute winds up in
court, Nevada lawmakers were told Wednesday.
Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, told the Assembly Judiciary
Committee that her AB127 would allow consumers speaking with
collection agencies to record their phone calls without the consent
of the agency.
Smith cited news reports about debt collectors becoming increasingly
aggressive, adding that the Federal Trade Commission received more
than 66,000 complaints about third-party debt collectors in 2005,
about six times the number of complaints the agency got in 1999.
Nevada is one of about a dozen states that require both parties to
consent before a telephone call is recorded. Only a few types of
conversations are exempt from that rule, such as certain emergency
situations, court-ordered wiretaps, and some phone calls from
prisons.
Las Vegas Attorney Mitch Gliner, who represents people suing
collection agencies for abusive practices, said his clients have had
collection agencies tell them they would be thrown in prison,
deported, or lose the right to visit their children if they don't
pay up.
"While the majority of debt collectors, in my view, certainly are
law-abiding, there's a substantial component ... that will attempt
to strong-arm and extort and intimidate people into paying money,"
said Gliner.
Several representatives from debt collection agencies spoke against
the bill, saying their industry shouldn't be singled out. Some
debtors could "set up" situations where collectors say the wrong
thing, or use technology to manipulate recordings, they said.
David Stone, who owns a Las Vegas debt collection agency, told
lawmakers that since only debtors would have the recordings, there
would be no way to verify the recordings were accurate, and the bill
could inspire spurious lawsuits.
"Phone call recordings are extremely unreliable, especially in this
day and age, when manipulating a phone call recording is as easy as
clicking a computer mouse," said Stone. "This gives desperate or
creative debtors license to record a conversation, manipulate it,
and sue the agency. The debtor is the only person who has control of
the recording. They can do whatever they want with that."
John Wanderer, a Las Vegas attorney who works for debt collectors,
said that abusive phone calls haven't been a widespread problem
since the federal government passed the Fair Debt Collection
Practices Act in 1978. The bill's definition of who is a debt
collector is ill-defined, he added.
"What is a collection agent?" asked Wanderer. "Is that the lawyer
calling from the casino to someone who gave the casino bad markers?"
The committee also considered AB116, a bill sponsored by Assemblyman
John Carpenter, R-Elko, that would reduce the minimum amount of
narcotics required to convict a person of drug trafficking from four
grams to three grams. The bill would also increase the minimum
sentence imposed for such crimes from one year in prison to two
years.
Lobbyists for public defenders in Clark and Washoe counties spoke
against the bill, saying the limits are so low that the bill would
only increase the number of low-level drug users in prison.
To Be Continued....
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