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Collection agencies have been known to pose as sheriff’s deputies or other law enforcement personnel to threaten debtors with jail time unless they pay their debts. It’s illegal, of course, both to pose as a cop and to threaten criminal action for most debts (owing money typically isn’t a crime), but it’s done.
In one case, though, the collector apparenlty wasn’t posing. A suburban Chicago woman told The Star, a Sun-Times newspaper, that she was contacted about a $110 debt by a local police officer who told her to pay or face criminal charges.
What’s even more breath-taking is that the police chief admits his officers sometimes contact debtors as a “service” to local businesses and defended the threat of criminal action as “appropriate.”
The chief might want to take a look at the FTC’s handy guide to federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. And the taxpayers of Midlothian might want to consider trimming their police force; clearly their officers don’t have enough real police work to do.
