When unscrupulous debt collectors come calling, proceed with caution

HILLSBORO, Ore. - In 2009, the Oregon Attorney General's office, received more than a thousand complaints about debt collectors. And in some cases, the victims did not even owe any debt to the pursuing collectors.

One such person was Kathleen Knutson of Hillsboro. According to Knutson, she received as many as sixty calls a day from a group of debt collectors who claimed she owed several hundred dollars. But in fact, she says, she didn't owe them a penny and the incessant phone calls asking for money confused the Hillsboro resident.

The initial phone calls Knutson received indicated that if she did not pay the debt in a timely fashion then she would be "in trouble."  She then pleaded with the collector to give her some time to figure out the confusion, but that only prompted the debt collectors to increase their threats. A representative from the company then told Knutson that she could go to jail if she didn't pay the debt and later a debt collector told her that he would murder her unless she paid.

All across the country, people are receiving these same kinds of harassing phone calls and some are even falling for these threats and they are coerced into paying debts they do not owe.

In Knutson's case, she was bailed out of this situation thanks to her mother who works in real debt collecting.

In response to these shady debt collectors, the Federal Trade Commission has produced a video outlining the many ways debt collectors can break the law, including calling before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., and they can't lie about anything in order to entice a client to pay. 

KATU's Problem Solvers team contacted the company that had been calling Knutson, but they refused to speak with us. 

The true moral of the story is to know your debt and debtors and to thoroughly investigate any phone calls from debt collectors in order to avoid paying fake debt. 

One interesting side note to this story is that this particular kind of debt collector that contacted Knutson may be getting information from people who apply for payday type loans online.