McLeod Law Offices

When you’re deep in debt, going to the mailbox can feel pretty overwhelming. In fact, I’ve had clients tell me that it’s something that have dreaded on a daily basis. Of course, this time of year, in addition to bills and junk mail, there are also greeting cards from friends and family.

I still get holiday greeting cards from people I have not spoken to in almost 20 years (let’s not let Roy, my associate know that as he’ll only remind me how old I am). Of course, I do not get cards like the one that fellow NACBA member and Hawaii Attorney Stuart Ing recently shared.

I am not sure if it’s funny, or just plain wrong. The artwork is pretty. It is apparently designed by Hallmark artist Johne Richardson (I did not misspell the first name).

The greeting card is fairly inoffensive to the eye. Soothing. A means of conveying peaceful wishes to someone struggling…almost like a sympathy card. And then… I get to the requisite FDCPA language on the inside left. You’ll need Adobe, – but you can check it out here.

The American Bankers Association is telling the Arizona Republic that the new bankruptcy laws (which will have it’s first anniversary on Tuesday, October 17) is working as it was intended. Fortunately, there is more than one source for news. Delaware Online reports that after one year, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 is not quite doing what bankers had hoped or paid for.

Certainly, bankruptcy attorneys – including yours truly – would agree that there has been a substantial drop in case filings. A Toledo Blade report attributes the drop in filings to higher legal fees and a “difficult” income test. Most bankruptcy attorneys have had to increase their fees since October 17, 2005 due to the increased work on a typical bankruptcy. In many cases, the work has doubled than it was under the old law. However, I am not convinced that the means test is “difficult.” While it’s an extra form, and more paperwork, I cannot say however, it is “difficult.”

What remains difficult is the struggle people face in dealing with debt that’s grown out of control. That difficulty is only intensified when debt collectors get ugly. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this year the Pennsylvania Consumer Protection Bureau has received the highest number of complaints against abusive debt collectors than any other industry, such as telephone companies:

Take the case in which a collection agency telephoned a woman’s 5-year-old daughter, ordering her to tell her deadbeat mommy that she’d better pay her credit card bills.

I have to wonder: did the bill collector also tell the 5-year-old that mommy could not file bankruptcy anymore because it was too expensive and there was a difficult income test? I hope not. Debt collectors are not supposed to lie.