"Better Off Deadbeat: Suing the Bill Collectors"

"Better Off Deadbeat: Craig Cunningham Has a Simple Solution

for Getting Bill Collectors Off His Back. He Sues Them."

by Kimberly Thorpe

"Unlike his neighbors' homes, Craig Cunningham's house in Northeast Dallas looks abandoned. The grass is dried out. The concrete slab under the front door is lopsided and cracked. The green exterior has faded to a toxic-looking shade. Yellow Pages pile up near the front door, and the black mailbox is stuffed full. Maybe the home has been foreclosed on. That wouldn't be a surprise in this economy.

But no, that's not the case. Inside, the 29-year-old Cunningham hunkers his 6-foot-2-inch frame on a dumpy couch. His heavy arms extend from his sides, palms up, so two Chihuahuas, Angel and Chuay, can curl under them. Although it's 10 a.m. on a weekday, he's wearing slippers.

He leans forward to lift some paperwork out of a plastic tub on the coffee table. The phone rings, and he answers with a soft voice. It's just a friend, and soon he hangs up. He's waiting for a particular type of phone call- one from a representative of a debt collection agency or a credit card company, whom he'll try to ensnare like a Venus fly trap. It's not unlikely that Cunningham's next call will be from a bill collector, since he's between jobs- except for being in the Army Reserve- and owes $100,000 in debts.

While most Americans with unpaid bills dread the collector's call, Cunningham sees them as lucrative opportunities. Many collection and credit card companies, intentionally or not, violate little-known consumer rights laws, and Cunningham's favorite pastime is catching them doing so and then suing them. In fact, it's a profitable side job.

Call it ironic, but the only house on the block that appears to be the foreclosed end to some sad financial story is in fact the home of one of the debt collection industry's emerging and persistent threats. Cunningham calls himself a private attorney general- someone who files private lawsuits in the public interest. Debt collectors call him a credit terrorist.

Patrick Lunsford, who edits "InsideARM," a trade magazine for the debt collection industry, knows the term. "There is a sub-group out there that does actually advise people on how to bait collectors," he says. "That's something that really gets under the skin of, well, obviously, collectors."

Cunningham beats the debt collectors at their own game. He turns their money-making practice into a financial liability. He is a regular guy who has become a radical enemy of the banking system..."

The rest of the story is here: http://www.dallasobserver.com/content/printVersion/1653972

Know your rights, Good Citizen:
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act: http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpajump.shtm
Wikipedia information on FDCPA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Debt_Collection_Practices_Act

Sue the Bastards: "15 FDCPA Violations You Can Sue Them For, And Win"
http://credit.about.com/od/debtcollection/tp/fdcpa-violations.htm

Free Attorneys: http://www.westopdebtcollectors.com/Home.html

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