student loan call

We're ever so grateful you've swooped down on Julia the site owner's remarks from 2.5 years ago to make corrections on a point she *never discussed*. In fact, no comment on the entire first page mentions telephone recording or consent issues.

I don't think I go six weeks without seeing both unprompted and misleading lectures in wiretap law within a debt collection thread. I will hold my speculation as to why these Nervous Nellies discourage gathering the kind of clear evidence of lawbreaking which so often becomes very useful if not critical to law enforcement, regulators, attorneys general, and consumer litigants.

Once more with feeling ... Federal law allows "single party consent" by default, most states mirror that allowance, and there is no clear guidance on how state and county courts are likely to resolve disputes of controlling law regarding the recording of interstate phone calls. From my view the principal issues are expectation of privacy, the initial intended use of the recording, and determining which party in which state suffers the most harm from the recording. I also note that the ones screaming "wiretap" the loudest all want to bury whatever the recording reveals, something usually worse than the allegedly criminal act of capturing or revealing the recording.

One more time I review that in August 2010 a Second Circuit appellate court decided that a losing Wiretap Act defendant "must have the intent to use the illicit recording to commit a tort of crime beyond the act of recording itself". My own state law has pretty much the same language. It says that *making* a recording is not the problem, but its use and purpose. The recording passes when you are a party to the conversation *OR* when a party gives consent to be recorded. Recording or disclosing the call content becomes illegal when you're outside the loop and/or eavesdropping in secret. *THAT* kind of interception is a "wiretap". Recording something *in which you participate* merely to protect an already legal right IS NOT a "wiretap". Stealth recording is not itself a criminal offense unless your goal is to commit another crime or injury.

Now, does some other state law potentially endanger a person who is legally recording without disclosure? Sure it could, but the majority opinion I see bends away from punishing individuals who are *not trying to victimize* another person or company and in fact aim to prevent or correct some harm done to them or someone they care about.

The FCC requirements for interstate consent and "beep tones" apply directly to *carriers only*, which are then expected to police their customers who make stealth recordings. The only available penalty to an individual is revocation of service. Big whoop ... If my carrier cannot support my otherwise perfectly legal defense of my rights, I'd rather pay a monthly bill to a company that will.

Below I've linked to prior onsite discussion of phone recording consent, so we don't need to drag this thread away from the topic of fraudulent student loan debt collectors, a breed totally begging to be carefully recorded and widely exposed:

https://800notes.com/forum/ta-8d7dd66f17b0340/some-interesting-info
https://800notes.com/forum/ta-83a9080a2c61697 ... 831685243476208
https://800notes.com/forum/ta-3cc0be064ac04b8 ... 048715965495068

This is happening to me..right now. I got a call from Terence Mitchell stating that to call him back on a pending legal matter in my county. Their office is located in Texas..I live in Florida.. The debt is supposedly from Everest college for a term that I did not attend. I had signed up and right at the beginning of term...had a death in the family.. I never attended a class but signed out a day late for the withdrawal time. I did go straighten this out with the Senior Financial Officer...or so I thought..now 4 years later I get a call from Williams Rush and Associates saying they are going to garnish my wages.. I told Mr. Mitchell good luck with that...I make just enough to get by..I was transferred to a very unpleasant woman namercMrs. Payton ..this woman is a TRUE cols hearted [***]!!! She said to me if I paid 861 00 up front and made payment arrangements they would not garnish my wages for up to 35% of my check ...I told this lady that I have 4.00 in my bank account...I don't have any money...the response was that I was urged to ask family or friends for help.
I told her no way..im not borrowing money I can't repay.. I was then told they were filing the paperwork for wage garnishment right away.  I called back trying to get the dates of this supposed debt....no response...called back again to ask them to send me all there credentials as attorneys..no response..what does that tell you?

The maximum amount that they can garnish wages for is 25% of your disposable income (that is the money left over after you pay for your necessities), or 30 times the minimum wage,but there is a caveat.  They need to use the lesser amount.  Stating that your wages would be garnished 35% is an outright lie and a violation of the FDCPA.
Also there are state limits on wage garnishment in Florida.  Here is the law:  http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/florida-wage-garnishment-law.html
Now read the following very carefully and use the links to make complaints and to further educate yourself:
Federal law (FDCPA) requires them to send you a letter (US MAIL ONLY) within 5 days of their first contact that contains their name, physical address, the creditor’s name, and the amount of the alleged debt.  It also must contains “mini-Miranda” telling you that it is an attempt to collect a debt and that all information will be used for those purposes.  The one other important thing that this letter must also have in it is that you have a right to dispute the debt within 30 days receipt of the letter and if you do so, all collection activity must be stopped until the debt is verified.
Read up on your rights here, get template letters to send and also make a complaint at this government site:  http://www.consumerfinance.gov/
Also file a complaint with your State Attorney General's office.
List of State AG’s offices:  http://consumerfraudreporting.org/stateattorneygenerallist.php
Also file a complaint with the Florida AG’s Office:  http://myfloridalegal.com/
http://www.flofr.com/StaticPages/FileAComplaint.htm

I forgot to ask what the name of the debt collector's company was.

Very interesting for sure - thanks for share this information

Your welcome! :)

I see what everyone is saying and how mad tall are about the calling over a debt you owe.  Why don't tall just pay  your debt

Your comments have proven to me that people should avoid any call from this number.

Keep in mind that debt collectors have a PROVEN history of calling outdated numbers and harassing innocent third parties.

No honor in that one...

Ca is a two party consent state, I have used recordings in court regarding my child's education. WIth a whole team of lawyers ever vigilant to see proof of my consent before submission, do not believe there is federal law that states single party is OK. Please state the law. Do not mislead the public. Everyone needs to review their states laws on this. Not every state is 1 party.
But if someone calls and leaves a message on your voicemail in a 1 party consent state then you have their implied consent. Anything they say can be used in court and that's what I did. Judge agreed that the threatening calls from the school were harassment and unwarranted. This was part of my evidence of wrongdoing, I won my case.

The reason some unscrupulous  collection agencies encourage you to say "yes" is so they can alter the taping to having you say "yes" to things you didn't consent to. There are many scams that will go through the courts but if enough of the same agency lands in court then the judge can smell a rat.
My daughter had no loan with this agency and even if they bought some loan or debt and are now collecting, they have to do it legally. We told them to send us something in the mail. Nothing ever arrived because then they would have another issue, federal fraud using the US Postal Service.

Federal law requires that at least one party taking part in the call must be notified of the recording (18 U.S.C. §2511(2)(d)). For example, it would be illegal to record, without notification, the phone calls of people who come into a place of business and ask to use the telephone. Several states require that all parties consent when one party wants to record a telephone conversation. Many businesses and other organizations record their telephone calls so that they can prove what was said, train their staff, or monitor performance. This activity may not be considered telephone tapping in some, but not all, jurisdictions because it is done with the knowledge of at least one of the parties to the telephone conversation. The telephone recording laws in most U.S. states require only one party to be aware of the recording, while other states require both parties to be aware. It is considered better practice to announce at the beginning of a call that the conversation is being recorded.

Telephone recordings are governed by federal law and by mainly two types of state laws. Please google your state laws to understand further.

} do not believe there is federal law that states single party is OK. Please state the law. Do not mislead the public.

I can't tell if that admonition was aimed my way but I'll respond. I will do so in more granular detail than my carefully considered remarks from 7.5 months ago.
https://800notes.com/forum/ta-5a8c4f644edce82 ... 469557962503480

No one has to accept only how I have explained this issue to myself based on many hours of study. I will "please state the law" and discuss my view of it here, with reluctance, in a thread which is clearly about fraudulent college loan debt collection and *not* meant to concern legal boundaries of telephone recording, a long and bumpy topic detour which should really be dragged into a new thread.

In my prior statement that "Federal law allows 'single party consent' by default", I am relying on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), 18 U.S.C. § 2510-22. The ECPA is still casually known as the Act it updated, the 1968 Wiretap Act, which needed its coverage broadened beyond copper cables and POTS phones to include all kinds of communication technology. The old Wiretap Act represented a shift in attitude from The Communications Act of 1934, the first federal law to make wiretapping a criminal violation and also to render wiretap evidence inadmissible in court.

Early twentieth century law enforcers generally thought of wiretaps as "dirty pool", and the DoJ flatly prohibited the practice. But criminal and drug gangs in the late Sixties were outpacing the badges, who needed a way to eavesdrop on criminal confabs without being defeated by defense lawyers crying about Fourth Amendment rights. The ECPA has since been modified a few times, by the USA PATRIOT Act among others, to reflect shifting policies on terrorism.

My dangerously brief history review is only so that I may note the general slant of ECPA. It appears to help us combat large and obvious threats to public safety, public health, and the national economy without erasing everyone's protection from wrongful search and seizure. I'm not seeing a sidecar effort to prevent private individuals from using media recordings with the intent to *protect* their civil rights.

In that light, I quote two provisions of Title 18, Part I, Chapter 119, § 2511, concerning "interception and disclosure":

18 USC § 2511(2)(c)
It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication, where such person is a party to the communication or one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception.

18 USC § 2511(2)(d)
It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State.

18 U.S. Code § 2511 - Interception and disclosure of wire, oral, or electronic communications prohibited
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2511

It's all as I said before. "A party to the communication" has permission to "intercept" and therefore record. "A party to the communication" may grant consent to *someone else* to record. That is single party consent, echoed in a majority of state laws.

To act "under color of law" is to abuse a position of authority or appear to act with authority while violating a person's rights. Nolo Press gives the example of "issuing phony traffic tickets in order to raise revenue or extort payoffs". It's noteworthy that the ECPA really does not care *why* a phone call is recorded by one of its participants so long as that person lacks criminal intent. This in part is why the August 2010 appellate decision I keep harping on was correct.

Anyone who believes my statements "mislead the public" is free to repeat the same homework I've done and raise counter arguments or case law I might have missed.

Not all states have two-party consent Jill. I have a friend who lives in a one party consent state.

She said as much in a mostly accurate comment.

Hard to find stuff like that in long posts sometimes Res... Yours, despite it's length, was easy to read-you compartmentalized it well