Please read entire thing before commenting, Thanks.

Okay, here’s the situation. I keep getting phone calls, 1 or 2 times a day from a Collection Agency named Gillum, Driskel, & Associates. They keep calling around 8:45 pm, and this just happens to be around the time that we are trying to put my 8 month old down for the night, and my 3 year old is already asleep. It’s extremely annoying, due to the fact that it isn’t my debt. It is actually my mother in laws.

We have told them to call her on her cell phone numerous times, even given them her cell phone number. She doesn’t live with us by the way. And she doesn’t have a landline phone there.

So, here’s where it gets weird. Some will say for her to just pay the debt. Well, it goes deeper than that. 6 or 7 years ago, she was in a car accident, and is now 25% permanently disabled. She sued a LARGE automotive company that you know the name and won the case. She received a minimal settlement due to her not being greedy and only wanting to pay her medical bills. The lawyer worked out the deal, paid off her debts, and then paid her the remaining sum. Which wasn’t that much. Due to continued medical bills that she didn’t expect from that injury, she has used all the remaining money on her medical expenses.

Here’s the kicker. The lawyer never paid any of her bills and she didn’t find out until a year and a half ago. He did this for numerous clients and made Millions off of them. As of right now, he is behind bars. His office has been closed, and I can only assume that he owns nothing. This was due to a group of the clients banding together and getting the evidence to bring him down and get him thrown in jail. My mother in law was not part of the suite, and knew nothing about it until recently.

So her bills were never paid, and she now has a collection agency after her. Well, my wife is talking to a guy, Mr. Marino from the Collection Agency today. And she explains to him that she doesn’t live here and gives him the phone number. I’m not sure completely what happened at this point, but somehow, this guy upset my wife big time. He got all pissy with her, and demanded for her to pay the debt. Said it wasn’t his fault that it wasn’t paid, blah, blah, blah, and upset her pretty bad. I will find out what was said when I get back home, and I’ll update this with the info.

So we are going to be sending a certified cease and desist letter to Gillum, Driskel, & Associates, in Sarasota Florida at the following address:
Gillum Driskel & Associates
2285 Rose St
Sarasota, FL, 34239
(941) 952-0012
He also got extremely upset when he found out that Jess wasn’t going to pay the debt (since it wasn’t hers) and got irate when he found out that she had called the 1-800 number:

1-800-432-3988, saying that he was paying for the call, and hung up.

So, my question is. Are we handling everything properly? Is there anything else that we can do to get them to stop calling us? My mother in law is seeking legal advice to see what she can do, because she doesn’t have the money to pay the debt.

Help.

 

Turn the ringer off first...
Get Legal advice
Let the Lawyer send the letter.

 

Jason before you contact a lawyer (as you will need to pay them for any advice) register on this forum http://forum.freeadvice.com/ and post your issue you normally get a response back w/ in 12 hours and it's free.

If needed I can ask my brother in-law who is a lawyer at a large firm in Orlando.

Good luck
Sean

 

read this website and use it to shut down the debt collectors.

www.budhibbs.com

all you need to know.

 

Ok, first of all. I am NOT a lawyer nor am I licensed to practice in the state of Florida. However, I am a law clerk for a law firm in Sanford. If I were you I would def talk to an attorney before you take any actions. Most places have free or nominal consultation fees for a half hour of their time. They can tell you the best course of action to take. Honestly, sending a cease and desist letter may not be the greatest idea at this point because it will have no legal meaning or authority. Either written by you or by an attorney it means the same thing, stop or I will take legal action. However, written by an attorney will have far more persuasion to the collection agency.

Also, it might be worth your time to bring up the situation involving your mother-in-law for possible fraud, bad faith, legal malpractice claims as well as against the collection agency for bad faith or harrassment.

Seek out legal assistance. Once again I am NOT a lawyer nor licensed to practice in Florida. I am merely a law student/law clerk giving my opinion on your matter.

 

That's where you are wrong. The fair debt and collection practices act spells out all the legalities.

here is the FDCPA website, the legalities are spelled out in black and white.

http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/fdcpact.htm

The bottom line is that if the original topic poster were to read though Bud Hibbs site as well as read the FDCPA website, he will learn all he needs to in order to shut down their whole BS process.


I've had experience with this, not as a student but first hand .....perhaps 10 years of practical experience. Some of your info is vaild, Such as seeking legal counsel should the situation warrant, Doubtful it will be needed.

 

Thanks for all of the replies. Sean, can you pm me your brother in laws info? I'm gonna get mother in law to give him a call. It's worth a shot at least.